In this assignment, you will be given a quick overview of the rules of materials flow balances by tracking the evaluating the incoming widgets to and outgoing widgets from the Wonderful World of Widgets. This will involve an abbreviated overview of the development of materials flow balance diagrams and an abbreviated overview of the development of a materials flow balance equation.
You will also be asked a series of five questions and will be asked to develop a diagram. Thus, please have paper and pencil handy.
What is a materials flow balance diagram? A materials flow balance diagram simply diagrams the pathways followed by a material throughout the industrial processes of a facility. For purposes of this introductory exercise, our materials flow balance diagram is only going to involve a single industrial process, rather than the eight industrial processes actually found at the Wonderful World of Widgets. Thus, in effect, our blank materials flow balance diagram will be reflected by the following:
Wonderful World of Widgets Industrial Processes |
Duplicate this simple diagram with your pencil and paper for your use in completing this assignment.
What do we do with this blank materials flow balance diagram? We are interested in developing a materials flow balance diagram for widgets and widgets only in this assignment, so we should not think at all about how zinc enters the process, or how cyanide comes into play. Only think about widgetsas our objective in this exercise is to chart widgets.
What should we particularly focus on in terms of widgets? Your focus should be on three things:
All right, how do we begin the diagram? Begin by determining how widgets enter the process. With your pencil and paper, respond to the the following questions:
In answering these questions, you should refer to Wonderful World of Widgets' excerpted narrative description of the facility's processes. It may be useful to print out a copy of this narrative description if you have not already done so, or you will otherwise have to link back and forth between the description and this assignment when responding to other questions in this assignment.
Now that we know the origin of widgets, how do we indicate this on the blank diagram? You must show that widgets enter the facility from an outside source. Do so by charting a pathway (an arrow) from outside the facility diagram to inside the facility diagram. Your diagram will begin by looking like this:
The most important rules you must follow in developing a materials flow diagram are shown in this example.
Exactly what are the rules to follow in developing a materials flow diagram? The rules for diagramming are:
The arrow in is labeled as widgets. It indicates that widgets are entering the facility from an outside source by crossing over the facility boundary depicted by the dotted line. The arrow also indicates that widgets are going to a specific process, in this case raw materials storage, by showing the arrow leading to and touching the box representing the raw materials storage area.
How will these rules help? You will later understand the importance of following these rules when you are attempting to diagram a complicated materials flow. For now, let's take the next couple of steps and chart the pathways that the widgets follow in the next couple of industrial process by answering the following questions:
Now that we have answered the questions, how do we complete the diagram? Use the same principles we used when diagramming the initial incoming widgets pathway to diagram the outgoing widget pathways.
Once you have developed the widgets flow diagram into and out of the facility, you can check your responses to the questions posed in this assignment and check your diagram to verify that it is correct with the answers to this assignment.
Now that we have completed the diagram, is there anything else we should know? We will be using the diagram you just made to develop an equation and execute calculations in the next assignment. So have it available for the next assignment.
Once you have mastered the art of diagramming pathways in this simple exercise, and you understand why you must show the arrows coming in and the arrows going out, you will have completed this assignment.
Answers to Assignment 2
Go on to Assignment 3
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