VIRTUAL FACTORY

Capstone: Run & Optimize a Virtual Factory

Take a full five-station line from below target to meeting both a throughput spec and a tight machine budget: the whole manufacturing toolkit (bottleneck, balancing, cost) at once.

01Challenge

A five-station line runs at just 5.5 parts/min. The spec: at least 10/min, using no more than 7 machines total. Diagnose the bottlenecks, add capacity only where it pays, and land both targets.

02Model

This is everything at once. The required cycle for ten a minute is six seconds a part. Walk the line: Weld at eleven seconds and Assemble at nine both blow past six, so each needs a second machine: five-and-a-half and four-and-a-half. Everything else already clears the bar. That's exactly two added machines, seven in total, right at the budget, and the line settles just over ten a minute. Bottleneck, balance, cost: one move covers all three.

Add capacity until both specs are met.

03Guided practice

1. Required cycle. 10/min → 60/10 = 6 s/part ceiling. 2. Who's over? Weld 11 and Assemble 9 (per machine) exceed 6; Stamp 5, Paint 6, Test 4 are fine. 3. Add exactly where needed. Weld ×2 = 5.5, Assemble ×2 = 4.5. Total machines = 7 (≤ budget), throughput = 60/5.5 = 10.9/min. Don't over-spend elsewhere.

04Feedback

PASS WHEN PASS when the line sustains ≥ 10 parts/min using ≤ 7 machines: bottleneck fixed, line balanced, budget respected.

If your run fails, check:

Below 10/min: two stations exceed the 6 s required cycle (Weld, Assemble). Add a machine to each.
Over the 7-machine budget: you added capacity to a station already under 6 s/part. Pull it back.
Close: one station is still above 6 s/part. The line rate is set by the slowest per-machine cycle, so every station must clear the ceiling.

05Retrieve & space

The whole method in one line: bring every station under the ____ cycle (required = 60/target), spending only at the ____ (bottleneck).
For 10/min the per-machine ceiling is ____ s (6).
Why not add a machine to Test (4 s)? (it's already under the ceiling: pure cost, no throughput).

06Mastery & project

Optimize a full multi-station line to meet throughput AND budget: the complete bottleneck/balance/cost workflow.

The manufacturing capstone: prove a virtual factory hits spec under real constraints.

GO FURTHER · THE LIVE PLAYGROUND

Manufacturing Physical AI for real ↗ — the Charlot Lab's fully-3D-printed humanoid corpus

← Optimizing Under Competing Targets Back to course →

VIRTUAL FACTORY

Capstone: Run & Optimize a Virtual Factory

Edit the production line (JSON: each station has a cycle time in seconds and a number of parallel machines), then run it. The twin animates parts flowing and grades the line's throughput.

You read

the arrays and values already in scope

You change

the code you write in each cell

Fixed

the dataset and the checks that grade you