Manufacturing - Pinball Machine
Objective: Students will learn the manufacturing process from design to build through designing a pinball machine. Students will take what they can find, what they know and then will learn everything in between to assemble a pinball machine for each student in the class.
How do we begin to put together, well, anything?
There are basic steps in manufacturing processes, these includes the following; creating the design for the products, sourcing raw materials, processing the raw materials, production and quality control and marketing.
Creating the design of the products (this is the most time consuming)
An Engineering Log will be kept as students research different designs and create a design keeping the following in mind.
What will the product look like?
What will the product do?
What will be the size of the product?
What material will be needed?
How accessible are the materials
What is a reasonable cost of the product?
What is the difficulty level?
How much time will this take?
Sourcing the raw materials - Deciding what material is needed
What product is being manufactured.
Raw materials in manufacturing can be acquired from local sources or it might be imported from other countries. Imported raw materials can be acquired mostly from other business firms
Processing the raw materials
What kind of products is being manufactured? There are three manufacturing processes that can be used depending upon the the nature of the product to be produced.
First is the “ analytical process”. This process involves the breaking down of the raw materials into smaller parts. Examples of analytical process is the processing of different preserve foods such as corned beefs, hot dogs, sausages and several others.
Second is the “synthetic process”, this process involves the assembling of ready made parts or by using mixed ingredients. Example is the manufacturing of automobiles wherein most of the parts are assembled.
Third is the “conditioning process”, in this process the raw materials may be change on its form in order for it to be used in another purpose. An example for this is the processing of marble which is reshaped and smoothened and change from its original appearance to be used as tiles.
Production and quality control
Assures that a single product has the same quality of the rest that are being manufactured.
The use of workers who are trained for checking in every stage of manufacturing processes will ensure that the products undergoes quality control and meet the company's standard.
Marketing
Distribution of the finish products to the consumers.
Success in marketing depends upon the products quality, demand price, advertisements and several other factors.