Assembly Line Tutorial - Part 1

Introduction to the Company

The first thing you'll see when you start a new career is the Company page. The time and date is shown at top left, and below that is a summary of the financial state of the company. The most important figure there for now is Cash, which is the amount of money on hand to buy equipment and materials for your factory.

At bottom right is the Speed control. We've found that our FADEs often suffer from stretches of boredom once a factory is set up and running, so we provide a medication pump that delivers regular injections of Tardinol. This slows your brain chemistry and makes time seem to go by faster. You can use this control to adjust the dose.

Shortcut: Ctrl-LeftArrow and Ctrl-RightArrow decrease and increase the game speed.
This works on any page.

We'll come back to the rest of the features on this page later.

Product Designs

Your part in the product life cycle begins when our R&D department comes up with a design for a new product, so we'll start by paying a visit to the Products page.

Shortcut: Alt-P takes you to the Products page.

The left column of this page shows a list of all the products that have been developed so far.  The easiest one to get started with is the Phunky Phrisbee. Click on it and you'll see a diagram. The column on the right shows the composition of the materials making up the product. This one is very simple, just a solid disc 25 pixels in diameter made of a single material.

Materials Science

As you may remember from your high school chemistry classes, all matter is made up of varying amounts of the three basic elements ruddium (R), verdium (G) and bluminum (B). Each pixel can contain up to 15 atoms of each element, indicated by a subscript in the chemical formula. Our example product is made of R15, or pure ruddium.

The interstices between the atoms are filled with a black substance known as obscurum, sometimes referred to as the "fourth element", although this is not strictly accurate, since it's not really an element but an absence of any element. (Don't worry if you don't understand this -- a study of quantum chromatology is needed to fully appreciate it.) The amount of obscurum is not usually shown in the formula, since it's implied by the amounts of the elements. The special case of a completely black pixel is written as K.

Building a Factory

Shortcut: Alt-F takes you to the Factory page.

The Factory page is where you build and operate a factory. On the right there is a selection of controls and editing tools. From top to bottom they are:

Getting Materials In

The first thing we will need is a way of getting raw materials into the factory. Switch to the Machines page and select the Supply Hopper. Then switch back to the Factory page and select the Add tool.



As you move the mouse around the factory, an outline of the machine to be added moves with it. The outline is green when it's over a space where the machine can be placed, otherwise it's red. In the case of this particular machine, the outline sticks to the left edge of the screen. That's because a Supply Hopper needs to be on the left side of the factory where the materials come in.



Position the Supply Hopper near the bottom of the screen and click the mouse button to place it. If you accidentally put it in the wrong place, use the Move tool to drag it to a better position.


Building a Conveyor

Next, we need a conveyor belt to get the materials to a machine that can process them. From the Machines page, select the Conveyor End, and then go back to the Factory page. Position it underneath the Supply Hopper, towards the left, and click to add it.



Now select a Conveyor Section and place it under the Supply Hopper next to the Conveyor End.


Machines Menu

If you know which machine you want, there's a faster way of selecting it than switching back and forth between the Factory and Machines pages. On the right of the Factory page, below the tool menu, there's a square that displays the currently selected machine type. Clicking on this square brings up a menu from which you can select a machine type to add.



Use the machines menu to add three more Conveyor Sections, and then another Conveyor End.



The conveyor belt needs a motor to drive it. Select the Conveyor Drive and place it just below one of the Conveyor End sections.



At this point, you can try switching on the factory to see what happens. Click the Start button. You'll get a message asking whether you want to purchase the machines you've just added; answer OK.

If you've positioned all the items properly, the conveyor belt should start moving. When you've finished watching it, click the Stop button.

Rotating Machines

Some machine can be rotated. When you have a rotatable machine type selected, you can press the R key while using the Add tool to change the orientation in which the machine will be placed. You can also press R while dragging a rotatable machine with the Move tool to change its orientation.

In particular, you can rotate the conveyor parts to build conveyors that run vertically instead of horizontally. Note that you need to rotate the Conveyor Drive as well so that it connects up with the conveyor properly. You can also use the Configure tool on the Conveyor Drive to change the direction in which the conveyor moves.

Also note that you only need to set whether the Conveyor End is horizontal or vertical -- it will flip from side to side automatically according to whether it's at the beginning or end of a conveyor.

Choice of Materials

The Supply Hopper isn't supplying anything yet, because we haven't told it what material we want. Select the Configure tool and click on the top part of the Supply Hopper (the part that isn't over the conveyor belt). You'll get a dialog box for specifying the material that the hopper will supply.



Click on the Material field, select Phunky Phrisbee, and click on the red square that appears to the right. Click outside the pop-up box when you've finished.



Materials come in standard size sheets. There isn't a 25x25 sheet available, unfortunately --  the closest size is 30 x 30, so select these numbers in the Sheet Width and Sheet Height boxes.



You can now see what the material is going to cost. The elements come at different prices -- ruddium is quite cheap, verdium is somewhat more expensive, and bluminum is more expensive again. Also, pixels made of pure elements are more expensive than mixtures.

The sheet size also affects the price -- it's more economical to purchase materials in larger sized sheets, provided it won't result in excessive wastage.

Finally, you need to set the Supply Rate, which governs the time between delivery of successive sheets of material. The default rate of 12 sheets per day will be suitable for this exercise. (An hour of game time corresponds to a second of real time, so this translates to one sheet every two seconds.)

When you've finished configuring the Supply Hopper, click OK.

You may want to try running the factory again now. Sheets of material should begin dropping onto the conveyor and moving along it. At the moment, they'll just fall off when they get to the end, so stop before you waste too much material.


Processing the Material

Now we need a machine to turn the raw material into a useful product. Select the Punch machine and place it so that the bottom part is over the conveyor belt.



Using the Configure tool, click on the Punch (again, above the conveyor belt). Here you get to select the shape and size of the punching tool, how far from the edge of the material you want to punch, and which edge of the material to measure from.



For our purposes, we want a circular tool with a Diameter of 25 and an Offset of 2, measured from either edge.

If you run the factory again now, you'll see the Punch in action. You'll be asked to confirm another equipment purchase.



The discs that are punched out come out of the chute at the top of the machine. Currently they will just fall on the floor -- we'll fix that in a moment.

Collecting the Product

We need another conveyor to take the parts produced by the Punch. Add another two Conveyor Ends with a Conveyor Section between them, underneath the output chute of the Punch. Also add another Conveyor Drive to power the new conveyor.



Now select a Packing Station from the Machines page and place it at the right end of the second conveyor, so that its chute lines up with the conveyor.



Using the Configure tool, click on the Packing Station and select Phunky Phrisbee as the product to be packed. Leave the crate size set to the default of 10.


Running the Factory

Now the factory will do something useful! Click the Start button and watch what happens. The parts produced by the Punch should get collected and delivered to the Packing Station, where they will be put into the crate. When the crate is full, it will be shipped off and sold, and if all is well, you will earn some revenue from it.

Recycling Junk

Before we go any further, we need to do something about all the punch waste that's building up on the floor. If you run the factory that way for too long, the Health and Safety officer will stop it and refuse to let it start again until it's cleaned up. You can do that manually with the Sweep button , but it's much better to put a Recycle Bin at the end of the conveyor to catch the waste.



When the recycle bin fills up, it's automatically emptied and the waste sold for its scrap value. This is only a small fraction of the purchase price of the material, but every little bit helps the balance books.

Stock Levels and Reports

Let's follow the crates of Phunky Phrisbees we're making and see what happens to them. Switch to the Company page (shortcut: Alt-C) and select the Products tab in the right-hand pane. Also set the Speed to Medium, otherwise it'll be quite a while before you see anything happen.

The Products pane shows you how many of each product are sitting in stock waiting to be bought by a retailer. You should see the number of crates go up to 1 at intervals of a day or two, and then back to 0 as the crate is sold.



You can select a product line here and use the Settings... button to adjust its selling price. The default price is what Marketing has calculated it should be sold for in order to be competitive. Their estimates are usually fairly accurate, so it's best to leave the price alone unless you have a particular reason to change it.



You can also temporarily stop selling a product by turning off the For Sale option in the Settings. You may want to do that if you have a factory that's producing faulty products, and you don't want to sell them and lower the product's reputation (more on that later). In that situation, you would probably also want to use the Scrap button to sell the faulty products for their scrap value (it won't be much, but it's better than nothing).

Now let's go to the Reports page (shortcut: Alt-R). There are four kinds of report available on the Reports page: Sales, Marketing, Factory and Financial. We'll look at three of these now, and leave the Factory report for later.

Sales Report

This report shows you how many units of each product you have sold, and some related statistics. Controls at the top allow you to select the period for which figures are shown: Total over the lifetime of the company, the previous 3 months (not including the current month), the current month, or a selected month,



The Sold column shows the number of each product that has been sold to retailers. Missed is the number of customers who would have liked to buy your product, but it was out of stock. This is not a serious problem, because they will come back and try again later, but a nonzero figure here indicates that you could earn revenue at a higher rate if you produced faster. The % column beside it shows Missed as a percentage of Sold + Missed.

Lost is the number of customers that considered buying the product, but decided against it because they thought the price was too high. The price they expect to have to pay depends on the product's reputation (see below). As long as you produce good-quality products and don't try to sell them for more than the recommended price, this figure should remain zero. The % column beside it shows Lost as a percentage of Sold + Missed + Lost.

If you have sold any products as scrap, they will show up in the Scrapped column. Freight is the amount it has cost you to ship finished products to retailers; you can reduce this to some extent by increasing the crate size. Revenue is the total amount of income from selling the products.

Sat and Dis show the number of satisfied and dissatisfied customers, respectively, and %Sat shows the percentage of satisfied customers. Since customers are required by law to send in their product registration cards and truthfully answer the questionnaire thereon, we have very accurate figures for these. Satisfaction is directly related to the quality of the product -- if you sell a top-quality product, all customers will be totally satisfied.

Marketing Report

The Marketing Department of Pixall Manufacturing is renowned for the frequency with which it conducts market surveys. (So frequently, in fact, as to be widely regarded by those outside the company as obsessive.) These surveys always consist of two questions: "Are you interested in buying our product?" and "Would you recommend to someone else that they buy our product?"

The Marketing report shows the results of the most recent survey, scaled up to the estimated size of the total market. The Interested column shows the number of customers who are interested in buying, and Uninterested those who are not interested in buying. Undecided represents the rest of the market -- people who haven't heard of the product yet or haven't made up their mind about it. (People who wouldn't want the product even if they knew about it aren't considered part of the potential market and aren't included in the report.)

There is a constant flux of people between these three categories. There is a base level of advertising conducted by Marketing that tends to turn Undecided customers into Interested ones at a modest rate. Interested customers will seek out a shop and try to buy your product. If it's in stock and selling for a reasonable price, they'll buy it; otherwise, they'll go back to being Uninterested or Undecided.

However, the main thing that governs how quickly you gain customers is the product's reputation. This is measured by the figures in the Rec column, which is the number of former customers that would recommend someone to buy the product, and Not Rec, which is the number that would recommend someone not to buy it. These in turn are determined by the number of satisfied vs. dissatisfied customers. A newly satisfied customer becomes a Rec, and a newly dissatisfied one becomes a Not Rec.

Rec customers tend to cause Undecided customers to become Interested ones, and Not Recs cause them to become Uninterested. This is a powerful effect, and a good product reputation can gain you customers considerably faster than relying on advertising; conversely, a bad reputation can do a lot of harm.

However, former customers' memories fade fairly quickly, causing the Rec and Not Rec numbers to decay over time, so you need a constant stream of sales to keep the reputation up and thereby continue generating more sales. On the other hand, it also means that a bad reputation won't last forever, so if a product has been selling poorly due to low quality, sales will eventually pick up again after the quality is improved.

Financial Report

This report shows you a breakdown of income and expenditure into various categories, helping you to see exactly how and where you're making or losing money. The first four columns show figures for the current month and the three preceding months. The last column shows the totals over the lifetime of the company.

The figures in each column are arranged into four groups, with some intermediate totals. The first group represents regular sources of income. Product Sales is the income received from selling finished products; Material Resale is from selling offcuts of material collected in your recycle bins.

The second group represents regular outgoings: Material Purchase on buying sheets of raw material; Freight Costs on shipping finished products; Factory Rental (a constant amount per month); and Factory Running Costs, which are incurred as long as the factory is running and depend on the number and type of machines in the factory.

Balance of Earnings is the difference between regular income and regular expenditure, and it indicates whether you're making or losing money overall. As long as it's positive most of the time, you'll eventually make a profit.

The third group represents one-off expenditure: Machinery Purchase is the amount spent on new machines for the factory, and Research Spending is the amount spent on developing new products (covered later). Machinery Resale is the amount regained from selling surplus machines second-hand, and is deducted, giving Net Capital Outlay.

Profit is the difference between Balance of Earnings and Net Capital Outlay.

The fourth group represents your personal salary and bonuses, which are paid out of the profits each month (see below). The final total after deducting these is the Net Cash Flow -- the total funds flowing in or out of the company.

Salary and Bonuses

As well as a regular salary, the company also offers bonuses for meeting specified targets. The bonus currently on offer is shown in the bottom left pane of the Company page. The targets can be of various types, such as profits, unit sales, or sales value, and can be for one month or for a lifetime total. When you meet the target, you are paid the bonus, and then offered a new, higher target to aim for.

If monthly profits are high enough, you may also be offered salary increases. You can accept these, or decline them with the option of accepting at a later date.

Payment of salary and bonuses is contingent on the company having a certain minimum amount of cash on hand. If cash is short, payment will be deferred until the financial position improves. Any back payments owed to you are shown in the bottom left corner of the Company page.

Quality Control

So far we haven't been overly worried about the quality of our Phunky Phrisbees; it's such a simple product that there's hardly anything that can go wrong in manufacturing it that won't be obvious. However, when we come to make more complex products, we'll need to have a way of diagnosing problems, and that's where the Quality Control Station comes in.

Although we don't really need it for this product, we'll add a QC Station to the Phunky Phrisbee factory learn how it works.

Adding a QC Station

Slow the game down, stop the factory and use the Move Tool to move the packing station and the right end of the second conveyor a few squares to the right (remember to move the Conveyor Drive as well).

Now select a QC Station from the Machines page and place it over the conveyor just before the packing station.



Use the Configure tool to set the QC Station to test Phunky Phrisbees.



Now run the factory. When a good part goes past the QC station, it makes a high-pitched beep and its green light comes on.



To see what happens when the QC station finds a bad part, use the Configure tool to temporarily change the Offset setting of the Punch to -3. This will cause the punching tool to miss the edge of the sheet and create parts with a flat on one side.




When the malformed part goes past the QC Station, it makes a lower-pitched beep, the red light comes on and the part is placed on the table beside the station so you can take a look at it. Any part previously on the table gets discarded off to the right. You may want to place another Recycle Bin there to catch them.


Inspecting Parts

Although it's fairly easy to see what's wrong with the part in this case, a more subtle error may not be so obvious. To get a detailed look at the part, select the Inspection Tool and click on the QC station. A badge with a magnifying glass appears next to the station to indicate that it has been selected for inspection.



Now, switch to the Inspection page. You will see a magnified view of the part currently on the QC Station table, overlayed on a diagram of the product specification. Correct pixels are outlined in green, and incorrect ones in red, making it easy to see where the errors are.



(If the above seems worse than it should be, it's because the QC Station is a bit stupid in the way it compares things. The flattened frisbee is only 23 pixels wide, whereas the pattern it's being compared against is 25 pixels wide. The centres of the bounding rectangles are being aligned, resulting in a lot of erroneous pixels down both sides. The customers buying your products are just as dumb, however, and will judge the quality in the same way.)

You can click on a pixel to find out its exact composition. The selected pixel is highlighted with a yellow or blue frame. The actual composition of the pixel and the required composition according to the product specification are displayed on the right.



Next: Tutorial Part 2
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