Anyone who has faced a production problem with a need to solve it by using production data can relate to the notion of a brain teaser. The brain teasers presented here are based on real-world situations encountered by workers in manufacturing environments. The brain teasers have three parts: (1) the situation, (2) available data or other supporting information and (3) questions that various workers need answered for continual improvement.
Bernie is the production superintendent in charge of the production of polished chrome castings. These castings are sold to a large number of customers for automobiles, motorcycles and children's riding toys. In the polishing process, one operator runs three machines on each of two 8-hour shifts. Each operator keeps track of the part number, the number of parts in a run and the number of parts with flaws that can be seen after the polishing step. A final yield, percentage of good castings, is calculated for all three polishing machines together. The yield values for each shift are entered into the daily production report.