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Facility Management
Assume that you are the Assistant Maintenance Supervisor for WidgetWorld, a widget* manufacturing plant. You have been directed to get with the Production Manager to discuss and agree upon which factors you need to consider to determine the plant’s maintenance strategy for the next decade. WidgetWorld’s widgets, the only widgets still domestically produced and considered by many to be the best in the business, are marketed to a variety of commercial appliance manufacturers. Your plant generally has a one-week partial shut-down for re-tooling in the summer but otherwise is in full production. Keep in mind that the equipment probably will not be available for maintenance because of the re-tooling by the operations staff.

You need to prepare a brief report the General Manager (the boss of the Production Manager and your boss, the Maintenance Supervisor – refer to the Organization Chart in the “Resources” section). In at least one page*, describe:
What you and the Production Manager decided,
Why you agreed to that decision, and
How you plan to implement the plan. Discuss any manpower, material and equipment concerns you might have, and
How you will accommodate the Production Manager’s desire to keep full production.
Within that same paper, in one paragraph, discuss in what applications/situations you might choose to use Unscheduled Maintenance.
I realize that this may be slanted to those students who are or have been working in industry, but use what you learned in this lesson, your previous studies (you mean, I had to remember that stuff?) or other knowledge you might have gleaned through your years, or lacking that use your “gut feeling”.

Upload your paper in .rtf format (if you don’t know how, ask someone). For the file name of your paper use FM504_lastname_3, obviously substituting your last name in place of lastname (be sure to put the underscores _ in there). Make sure you click “Submit for grading”, but only after you are sure you are finished; you will not be able to change it after that.

* A widget is an unnamed or hypothetical piece, a gadget

** 8½x11 paper, 12 pt font, double-spaced, 3/4 inch margins all around. Make sure your name and FM504 are on the paper.