Littlefield Technologies: Overview Arkansas State University Dr. Ahmad Syamil, CFPIM, CIRM, CSCP

Littlefield Technologies Littlefield Technologies is a factory simulator that allows students to compete with each other over the web while developing operations management skills. Littlefield Technologies was developed by Dr. Sunil Kumar and Dr. Samuel C. Wood at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Stanford has licensed the simulator to Responsive Learning Technologies, which has implemented it in a way that multiple universities can access it over the web

Littlefield Technologies It is most commonly used in courses that include the following: Operation Management Management Science/Operations Research/Quantitative Methods Production and Inventory Control Industrial Engineering Manufacturing Learning Objectives include: Utilization and queuing Capacity management Lead time management Inventory control Cash flow management Managing customer responsiveness, etc.

Littlefield Technologies Littlefield Technologies is a job shop which assembles Digital Satellite System (DSS) receivers These receivers are assembled from kits of electronic components procured from a single supplier The assembly process consists of four steps carried out on three stations Board stuffing Testing Tuning

Littlefield Technologies 4 steps Step 1 consists of mounting the components on PC boards and soldering them at the board stuffing station Step 2 is when the digital components are briefly tested at the testing station Step 3 is when key components are tuned at the tuning station Step 4 is when the boards are exhaustively “final tested” at the testing station

Littlefield Technologies All the stations consist of automated machines which performs the operations You may buy and sell any machine Board stuffing machines cost $90,000 Testers cost $80,000 Tuning machines cost $100,000 Selling retirement price is $10,000 Orders arrive randomly at the factory and each order is for 60 receivers which is then matched up with 60 raw kits and becomes a manufacturing lot

Littlefield Technologies If an order comes in and there are less than 60 raw kits, then the order waits in the customer order queue pending arrival of raw kits Each kit is processed one at a time and does not move on to the next station until the entire lot is complete on the current station Once all stations are complete, the lot is then shipped to the customer

Littlefield Technologies Raw kits are purchased from a single supplier and cost $10 per kit ($600 per order) with a fixed cost of $1000 per shipment The supplier requires 4 days to ship any quantity of raw kits An order is placed when the following 3 criteria are met: The inventory of raw kits is less than the material reorder point There are no orders for raw kits currently outstanding The factory has sufficient cash to purchase the specified order quantity

Littlefield Technologies The order is shipped when all 60 kits are complete for that order If an order is shipped out within 24 hours after it arrives, then $1,000 is earned If an order is shipped out after 24 hours of arrival, then a penalty is given Orders that take longer than 72 hours will generate no revenue at all

Littlefield Technologies You will have some cash on hand when the assignment begins This amount is depleted by buying machines as well as buying raw kits from suppliers The revenue comes from filled orders in the allotted amount of time and earns interest at 10% per year There are no taxes and all overhead costs are ignored The winning team is the team with the most cash at the end of the game

Registering Your Team Before the assignment begins you need to create and register your team (maximum = 3 students per team) You need a team name (all lower case letters and no punctuation) and a password On the registration page, you will have to enter the code given in class Then you can enter your selected team name and password Finally, you will need to enter names of the team members

Accessing Your Factory Your factory can be accessed from the entry web page using your team name and password The following points about configuring your browser are crucial but only necessary if things do not appear to be working right: Browser must be Netscape Navigator 3.0 or later or IE 3.0 or later Java and JavaScript should be enabled

Using the Simulator The web-based simulator runs continuously One hour of real time corresponds to 24 hours of simulated time Your factory is updated at login time and you can also click the update button on the bottom of the page Assignment information is given to you before each assignment and while the assignment is running you can access the simulation as many times as you would like Once the assignment is over, the page is frozen and no more changes can be made

Using the Simulator Clickable icons are shown after login They reveal a menu and corresponding data Clicking on the icons will enable you to change certain features of the factory such as the number of machines in a station Sources and used of cash can be found here as well Finally, you can check the overall standing of your team