INTERACTIVE ENGINEERING LABORATORY

Design it. Maintain it. Improve it.

Compare small and large manufacturing systems, integrate production resources, then evaluate maintenance and operational performance.

Understand production engineering and manufacturing systems

Select materials, processes and facilities

Integrate the production system

Evaluate and optimise performance

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CROSS-INDUSTRY TRAINING

Choose an industry scenario

Load a realistic production, quality and maintenance starting point, then adjust the assumptions and compare your decisions.

Industry

System readyAluminium pump housing · Batch production

GOOD OUTPUT—Demand —

TAKT TIME—minutes per required unit

UNIT COST—against target

OEE—availability × performance × quality

PERFORMANCE VIEW

System effectiveness

Target Risk Action

0%

Overall equipment effectivenessRun the system to evaluate performance

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BOTTLENECK ANALYSIS

No analysis yet

Run the simulation to locate the constraint and receive a targeted improvement recommendation.

Capacity utilisation—

Production lead time—

Yield—

On-time delivery—

Work in progress—

Energy use—

MATERIALS, PROCESSES & FACILITIES

Select how the product will be made

Compare technically credible alternatives. Your selected process, joining method and facilities carry forward into system design.

Material–process selector

Change the requirements to recalculate process suitability.

Strong ≥75 · Possible 50–74 · Weak <50

Material familySpecific materialGeometryQuantityAccuracySurface finish

Property influence

Move the sliders to see how material behaviour changes process suitability.

Strength 6Hardness 5Ductility 6Brittleness 3Thermal resistance 5Machinability 7

Joining technology selector

Joint materialsJoint requirementLoadingProduction condition

Manufacturing process comparison

Select up to three recommended processes to compare their trade-offs.

Select processes above, then compare them here.

APPLY YOUR LEARNING

Product manufacturing challenge

Choose a product to receive a manufacturing challenge.

Challenge productRequired facilities

Engineering justification

PRODUCTION SYSTEM DESIGN

Build the production system

Choose a technically sound sequence, production method, layout and handling system.

Process sequence

Use the arrows to refine the order. The simulator checks key engineering rules.

Production method

Select method

Facility layout

Select layout

Receiving

Stores

CNC

Drill

Inspect

Pack

Material handling

Justify your selection

DFMA simulator

Test redesign choices for manufacture and assembly.

Current partsParts removedStandardised partsAssembly time (min)Joining

Material-handling calculation

Distance (m)Loads/hourSpeed (m/min)Availability (%)

Lean & JIT experiment

Adjust the system and observe the inventory–responsiveness trade-off.

Batch size100WIP units120Setup time (min)60Deliveries/week3

VISUAL FACTORY MAP

Production route and facility data

Select a process to inspect its performance.

Select a process node.

APPLY YOUR LEARNING

Integrated production-system challenge

Explain how your process route, production method, layout, material handling and inventory approach work together.

PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT & OPTIMISATION

Evaluate the wider production system

Test supply, documentation, technology and human factors before returning to the performance dashboard.

Supply-chain simulator

Supplier lead time (days)Supplier reliability (%)Deliveries/weekOrder quantitySafety stockDemand/week

Human-factors simulator

Training 6Workload 7Communication 5Technology competence 6Improvement culture 5

Production documentation control centre

Find the deliberate revision, approval and access problems.

Select every document-control problem, then check your answer.

Industry 4.0 digital factory

Select technologies and compare their combined effect and implementation risk.

Error and cost of poor quality

Defective unitsScrap cost/unit (£)Rework hoursDowntime hoursRecall/compliance risk

APPLY YOUR LEARNING

Continuous-improvement strategy

You have a £100,000 improvement budget. Select investments, observe their combined effect, then justify the strategy.

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT & STRESS TESTING

Improve and stress-test the system

Apply lean controls, introduce a disruption and compare the result with your baseline.

Lean & reliability controls

Each choice changes the simulation. Benefits may involve trade-offs.

Test the system

Disruption scenario

Choose a scenario to reveal operational risk.

Corrective responseYour justification

BEFORE & AFTER

Performance comparison

Save a baseline on the dashboard before running improvements.

No comparison available yet.

Was the improvement successful?

Student challenges

PRODUCTION ENGINEERING FOUNDATIONS

Understand Production Engineering & Manufacturing Systems

Explore how production engineering combines manufacturing technology, quality systems and financial decision-making to design, control and improve manufacturing systems.

Digital defect check sheet

Choose from the grouped defect library or record a custom defect.

Pareto analysis

Bars show defect frequency and percentage; the line shows the cumulative percentage against the 80% attention threshold.

Defect frequencyCumulative percentage80% threshold

Investigate the vital few first. Frequency alone does not prove the root cause.

Fishbone: possible causes

A possible cause must be verified with evidence before it is treated as a root cause.

Process control snapshot

Investment appraisal

Compare a manual, semi-automated or highly automated system.

Initial investment (£)Annual net cash benefit (£)Fixed cost (£)Variable cost/unit (£)Selling price/unit (£)Discount rate (%)

Break-even—

Payback—

5-year NPV—

Simple ROI—

Financial results depend on assumptions. Test demand, cost and benefit changes before recommending an investment.

EVIDENCE-BASED DECISIONS

Compare, test and justify

Save alternative production designs, test which assumptions matter most and document how a suspected cause was verified.

Alternative design comparison

Run a design, name it and save it. Compare up to three alternatives using the same product and demand basis.

No alternatives saved yet.

Sensitivity test

Test how one uncertain input changes output, delivery, cost and OEE while all other inputs stay constant.

VariableVariation

Choose a variable and run the test.

Root-cause verification

A Fishbone cause is only a hypothesis. Record the test and evidence before confirming it.

How is this simulated?

Select a possible cause from the 6M library or add your own in the Fishbone tool.
Select one hypothesis here and state a test that could prove or disprove it.
Record the evidence from an inspection, measurement, trial or sample.
Confirm only when supported. Tick the box only if the evidence consistently links the cause to the defect.

Important: the simulator records and evaluates your investigation logic; it does not automatically prove a root cause. Real confirmation requires evidence.

Suspected causeIncludes People, Machine, Method, Material, Measurement and Environment causes.Verification testEvidence/result Evidence supports this as a root cause

CROSS-INDUSTRY ASSET MANAGEMENT

Maintain production capability

Model reliability, maintenance workload and operational risk for individual machines or larger asset fleets.

RELIABILITY & DOWNTIME

Asset-fleet maintenance simulator

Compare failure behaviour, repair demand and production consequences.

Number of assetsOperating hours/weekMTBF (hours)MTTR (hours)Planned maintenance (hours/asset)Downtime cost (£/hour)

MAINTENANCE STRATEGY

Select the maintenance approach

Strategy

Strategy justification

WORK-ORDER TRIAGE

Prioritise a maintenance request

Safety consequenceProduction impactAsset redundancyFailure urgency

MULTI-ASSET CONDITION VIEW

Industry asset health board

Compare condition indicators across production, utilities and material-handling assets.

MAINTENANCE & PRODUCTION INTEGRATION

Operational recommendation

Explain how your maintenance plan protects capacity, quality, safety, delivery and cost—not only machine uptime.

INTEGRATED LEARNING STUDIO

Practise, evaluate and demonstrate

Take the production engineer’s role, test layout and sustainability choices, then complete an assessment scenario.

PRODUCTION ENGINEER ROLE SIMULATOR

Respond to a manufacturing problem

Select a scenario, choose coordinated actions and explain your recommendation.

Engineering recommendation

FACILITY LAYOUT BUILDER

Arrange the production route

Move each station and compare travel, backtracking and flow risk.

SUSTAINABILITY DASHBOARD

Measure resource impact

Energy used (kWh/week)Carbon factor (kg CO₂e/kWh)Material input (kg/week)Scrap rate (%)Scrap recycled (%)Water used (litres/week)

FINANCIAL DECISION

Cost and investment appraisal

Compare break-even output, payback, five-year NPV and ROI for manual, semi-automated and automated alternatives.

SCENARIO COMPARISON

Baseline versus alternatives

Save up to three production designs, compare performance and test the sensitivity of uncertain assumptions.

ASSESSMENT MODE · FORMATIVE PRACTICE

Complete an integrated engineering case

Your evidence is checked against a transparent rubric; it is not a model answer.

1. Diagnosis2. Recommended action3. Evaluation

ASSESSMENT EVIDENCE GENERATOR

Build your simulation evidence

This report records decisions and results. It is not a completed assignment—you must interpret and justify the evidence in your own words.

Import progress