Plan of Making & Time Planning

Production Planning

With electronic products you can have either one complete plan of making for both the circuit and the casing or have separate ones. The advantage of separate ones is if for some reason you can not do one part such as vacuum forming a casing you could work on the circuit or vice versa.

While working on your design development you should have considered each of the steps required to complete both the casing and circuit. You now need to work out the order and list it. The list can be written, or drawn, a combination of text and graphics (recommended)  will help others make your product. The plan should include materials, tools and equipment required to complete each task, the time expected  to carry out each job. You should also have somewhere to record any changes or problems encountered during making. Example: I thought by using the CAD/CAM machine it would guarantee the part would be made in 20 minutes but because of a network error I was not able to complete it within this time, it actually took 3 hours.

By looking at your step by step time plan I should be able to know where you should be up to, what you have done and what you need to do to complete the project on time.

Example: When you have listed all of the steps of making your product you need to produce a time plan. This can be best displayed using a Gantt Chart like the example below. Allocate an amount of expected time to complete all of the manufacturing of your final product. Include everything from obtaining the materials to painting and cleaning your product, there should be somewhere for expected times and somewhere for actual times so you can record ongoing progress.
Remember to list your tasks in order

Task 1 : Obtain materials
Task 2 : Using ruler, template other mark-out sizes
Task 3
Task 4
Etc..
Etc..
Etc..
Etc..
Etc..

See example of Chart below.

One colour for expected time to complete each task then as you progress use another colour to monitor actual progress. A similar chart could be produced for the whole project to include the design folder work as well. This would use weeks instead of hours available.

Testing and Evaluation