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Penalties for Late Submissions

• Late submission of any item of coursework for each day or part thereof (or for hard copy submission only, working day or part thereof) for up to five days after the published deadline, coursework relating to modules at Levels 0, 4, 5, 6 submitted late (including deferred coursework, but with the exception of referred coursework), will have the numeric grade reduced by 10 grade points until or unless the numeric grade reaches or is 40. Where the numeric grade awarded for the assessment is less than  40, no lateness penalty will be applied.

• Late submission of referred coursework will automatically be awarded a grade of zero (0).

• Coursework (including deferred coursework) submitted later than five days (five working days in the case of hard copy submission) after the published deadline will be awarded a grade of zero (0).

• Where genuine serious adverse circumstances apply, you may apply for an extension to the hand-in date, provided the extension is requested a reasonable period in advance of the deadline.

This Assignment assesses the following module Learning Outcomes:

1. Select and apply quantitative modelling concepts for problem solving and decision making.

2. Use classical decision theory as aid to decision making.

3. Acquire a critical awareness of the logical process of modelling complex decision problems.

4. Apply techniques and practice to model real-world problems.

5. Derive solution(s) using a suitable software package when required.

6. Critically analyse and report results.

Assignment Brief:

Assume you have been given a consultancy task by Yuwen Chen’s factory which involves studying machine breakdown situation in their factory and the consequences of the breakdowns on their operations. The scenario in question has been adapted from Problem F.2 of Heizer et. al. (2016, p. 840).

The number of machine breakdowns per day at Yuwen Chen’s factory is 0, 1, or 2, with

1. Make a Monte-Carlo Hand Simulation to generate the number of breakdowns for 10 consecutive days. The following random numbers have been generated for you to use in the hand simulation 13, 14, 02, 18, 31, 19, 32, 85, 31, and 94. What proportion of these days had at least one breakdown? Yuwen Chen’s factory has five (5) identical machines and the machines operate in parallel. Jobs arriving the factory are required to be processed only on any ONE of the machines. The jobs are loaded on machines on first come first served basis. Jobs inter-arrival times are exponentially  distributed with rate parameter set to 8 minutes. The operation times follow a uniform distribution between 5 and 15 minutes.

2. Conduct a computer simulation of the factory to study the effect of machine breakdowns on operations.

a) Develop a brief for Yuwen Chen’s factory simulation task; describe the process involved in the factory operations and present a process map of the operations. State and discuss your assumptions.

b) Develop a Simulation model for the Yuwen Chen’s factory task.

c) Use the simulation model developed to estimate the average number of jobs completed per day i.e. 1,080 minutes.

d) Discuss your results. Yuwen Chen’s factory is interested in using a virtual engineering platform to explore their simulation models.

3. Critically discuss the benefits the factory could derive from conducting their simulation studies on a virtual engineering platform.

You are expected to provide a significant range of secondary sources to underpin your work. These must be cited and referenced according to the Harvard Referencing System. Include the word count in the header of your report.

Ensure that your technical report is well-structured and choose appropriate number and titles for the sections of the report please. There is no need to number the references section. Your technical report must follow the content and guidance above and must include the specific instructions outlined below.

1. Word-process the report on A4 paper size.

2. Use 1.15 line spacing.

3. Font type must be Arial, font size 11.

4. Ensure that all diagrams (figures) / tables are labelled and numbered.

5. Include a Title Page and a Table of Contents page.

6. Number all pages.

7. Grammar, spelling and style, as well as clarity, contribute towards the assessment of the

report.