Assignment

An oil remanufacturing company uses clay in its manufacturing process. This clay comes into the plant in 80-pound bags stacked 40 per pallet and 50 pallets per boxcar. The railroad spur comes into the plant property but your plant does not have a rail car siding. Two car loads per year are used. The union and the company agreed that the part time workers would be hired for one week, twice a year at the rate of $7.5 per hour to unload these cars. You feel that this is a bad job and no one should have to work this hard. You look into this project

Why is this done? We need the clay, and the railroad is by far the cheapest way to transport it

What: 80pounds bags of clay=160,000 pound boxcar load
Where: from the boxcar in our yard to the storeroom, 300ft away
Who: 2 temporary workers
When: one week, twice a year
How: Present method: manually unload the pallets off the boxcar then move these pallets into the storeroom with the fork truck we already own

How much could you spend improving this job?

- We spend a week, twice a year with 2 temporary workers at $7.5
- 4 weeks* 40 hours per week*7.5per hour = $1,200

Questions:

Should the current method stays the same?

Are there other alternatives?

Is the current method the cheapest in the long run?

How would you justify an expenditure over $3,000

What do you think about cumulative trauma disorders and work-related injuries?

Write a report with the answers to your questions.

Include figures, tables, and other sources of information to help justify the project and also answer the questions. You can certainly use the textbook to help you.

Include in your report a list of references and of course cite all your sources of information.

This work MUST be done in teams of 3 people or 2. No individual assignment will be accepted.