Bridge Street Toys is a new toy company started at the Flack residence. The three bay garage has been converted to inventory storage, an assembly area, and a shipping area. Two rooms on the third floor have been converted to offices. The dining room is the factory show room and the living room is the conference room. Finally, the kitchen serves as a cafeteria for the office and factory workers.
The Webelos, Paul Flack Jr., Christopher Symonds, Daniel Eluchans, Reid Knapp, and Colin Larocque started their quest for an engineering badge by hearing a briefing in the conference room. There they heard a short history of the company and how much engineering went into not only the design of the toys, but also the physical layout and design of the factory. The Webelos discovered that many different diciplines of engineering are required to start a business. Electrical engineers have to bring the proper power to the factory and offices. Chemical engineers specify the materials of the toy parts. Mechanical engineers produce mechanical drawings of the parts which are then sent to vendors. Civil and structural engineers design the warehouse and factory layout. Production engineers obtain the proper equipment and teach the factory workers how to produce a quality product. Sometimes, an engineer specializes in a function and sometimes all the different types of engineering functions are performed by one individual.
Several engineering problems were discussed with the Webelos. There were several design issues discussed – What should the parts look like? How will they fit together? What will they be made of? Some safety issues were discussed – Designing parts without sharp edges and designing parts so that they wouldn’t break. Then supply issues were discussed – How do we get the parts made? How do we get them to the factory? The Webalos discovered that producing what looks like a simple toy, actually took quite a bit of thought.
The second stop was to the factory showroom. The differences in the products were discussed and how costs were kept down by using similar parts and common dies. The Webalos also learned a little about economics – something that every engineer has to keep in mind when doing a job.
The third stop was the engineering office on the third floor. Here the Webalos had a chance to see how the parts were designed using a computer. All of the parts are drawn on a CAD (Computer Assisted Design) system. The CAD system is computer software that allows an engineer to draw and see a three dimensional part on a flat computer screen. The Webalos were allowed to make some drawings using the CAD system.
The next stop was the cafeteria for a snack. Then it was out to the factory to see how everything came together and a toy was produced.
The factory consists of an assembly bench and a few special tools such as a weigh scale. Most of the sets are assembled by hand. The BOM (Bill of Materials) for each set and sub-assembly is in the factory for easy reference. The BOM is used for the assembly worker to produce the product. Each Webalo was shown how parts move through the factory. Then each Webelo had the chance to produce one of our bank sets for themselves.
Each boy had to remove a tote from the supply box, apply labels. Then they had to count, and bag the proper mix of window panels. Next they had to count and bag one of each columns and beams. Finally, they placed each of the bags of parts along with two footings, a bag of preassembled small parts, and an instruction book in the tote and closed the tote.
Each boy had a chance to operate some of the production equipment. This included using a weigh scale which is used to quickly count a number of small parts, a laminator that is used to produce our signs, and a hand operated press which is used to produce our flags. As they operated each of these machines, they could see the parts being produced and could see how everything fit into the final product.