Virtual factory visits: EBEA web site

In recent journals, we have taken you through some of the different areas of the EBEA web site. 2005 will see a number of developments of the site and in future journals we will let you know about these developments and the new features we have added to the site. Please let us know what you would like to see on the site in the future through the 'Contact Us' links on the site.

VIRTUAL PRODUCTION

Getting access for students to visit factories and other company premises is becoming increasingly difficult. Cost pressures, health and safety regulations, curriculum pressures and other factors have all conspired to make it more difficult for us to give our students a flavour of how companies produce their goods and services. There are some companies who still offer good quality tours and if you know of them, then why not post a message to the EBEA forum (http://www.virtual-worlds.biz/ cgi-bin/discus/discus.pn suggesting these to others and see what ideas they may have.

However, if you are finding it difficult to arrange suitable visits, but still want to look at production in the classroom (perhaps on the interactive whiteboard), then why not consider using some of the "Virtual Factory Tours" that are available on the web. There has been a proliferation of these in recent years and many now offer a good way to introduce issues relating to production.

The original 'Virtual Factory' remains the classic; the Biz/ed Cameron Balloons Virtual Factory (http://bized.ac.uk/ virtual/cb/). On this site, you can take a Virtual Tour through the factory ihttp://www.bized.ac.uk/ virtual/cb/tour new/start.htm) where you can click and drag to pan around and then click on various hotspots to move through the different areas of the factory. There is a similar tour of the headquarters of a company called Mono based in Swansea (http://www.monoequip.com/ panviews/reception. htm) who make bakery equipment. You can tour around a few different areas of their firm in a similar way to the Cameron Balloons Virtual Tour.

For a more 'flash' factory tour you could go take a trip around the BMW factory to see how they make the X5 SAV or the Z4 roadster models. The BMW tour takes you step by step through the production process and could represent a good overview of production that you keep coming back to as the different areas of operations management are considered. The BMW tours are available on http://www.bmwusfactorv.com/ build/.

Perhaps the best site though for considering operations management issues is the AIM (Alliance for Innovative Manufacturing) site at Stanford University. This site is available on http://manufacturing.Stanford, edu/. The site offers information and videos on a wide range of production processes including:

* Boeing aircraft

* Harley Davidson motorcycles

* Hershey Bars

* Jelly Belly jelly beans and so on

The site has a range of associated activities, links to other online factory tours and some interactive questions and activities. It could be an ideal resource for use with an interactive whiteboard and help at a variety of levels to introduce the principles of production and operations management.

Copyright Economics and Business Education Association Spring 2005
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved