Reference no: EM132240097

As you read the assignment instructions, you see that I give some advice concerning how to do this project as a team. There is a physical aspect of the project - creating and flying, and measuring the flight times of paper airplanes - that assuming that you do not live near each other will need to be completed by a single team member, supported by friends or family members. Then the data should be shared among the team members. I would recommend that each team member conduct the analysis independently, and then come back together to share your results, finalize the analysis, and write up the report. When completed, each team member should make sure that they understand what is being submitted, as I will likely ask a few follow up questions to each team member. Let me know if you have any questions.

Define:

1. Identify and define a particular paper airplane design. You choose the design. Nothing fancy is required. Make ten planes according to this design. Try to make them exactly the same, but don’t become too stressed; some variation cannot be avoided.

2. The key metric is flight time (how long the plane flies before it hits the floor). Fly each of your ten planes one time and measure how long it takes for each of the ten flights. Each plane is to be flown once but timed by two different people using two different stopwatches (smart phones). Collect data in terms of seconds. Do not round the data to even seconds. In Minitab, do not use the time format xx:xx. This quickly gets confused in Minitab. Please convert your times to decimal values. For example, 10 minutes and 30 seconds is 10:30 in time format but is 10.5 in decimal format.

3. Using the collected data, establish the current process capability. For example, what is the average flight time? What is the standard deviation? You can do this in Minitab with Stat>Basic Stats>Descriptive Statistics.

4. Assuming a fare of $100 per flight second, calculate your current revenues projection assuming 500 flights per year. Use some creativity. Compare this to a target flight time (longer than you demonstrated in your capability study). Identify how much revenue you are currently missing because you are not currently achieving the target flight time. Do not try to change your design at this time.

Measure

1. Identify design or other such factors that might be preventing longer flight times. You might use such tools as a cause-and-effect diagram. Choose a couple factors that you might want to experiment with in order to increase flight times. Don’t experiment just yet.

2. Evaluate your current ability to measure flight times. You did this by having two people measure the same flights. Compare their results. How well do multiple people get the same times when timing the same flights? If the measured times differ, which time is most likely to be correct?

Unless some team members are located in the same vicinity, it will be necessary that only one team member does the physical part of the assignment (with the help of family and friends): make the planes, fly the planes, collect the data, etc. The other team members can pick up the slack by analyzing the data, creating the charts, and writing the report. All team members are ultimately responsible for the final report and its conclusions.

In addition to figures and calculations, please also be sure to include some textual commentary, as if you were submitting a report to your client or management. Please submit this assignment as a Word document, cutting and pasting figures, etc. from Minitab as necessary. It I also recommended to submit your Minitab file, in case the instructor needs to verify that the calculations were performed correctly.