The financial team has assembled to review labor data for a new engine. Designed for efficiency, the new engine's power to weight ratio and low drag geometry promised great things. Dashiell kicked off the meeting. "Folks, this is radical. For the nontechnical guys in the room, Wankel engines are finally achieving the efficiency needed to compete with alternatives. They are already considered more reliable, and we will get 1.7 horses per pound, versus about 1.3 for even the most advanced alternatives, losing less than 4% of the fuel efficiency. We will shave 60 pounds of engine weight and add about 10 pounds of fuel. With streamlining, we'll go from 250 knots cruising to 275, a total of 6% better, plus maintenance cost benefits. This is huge." He turned the meeting over to Dot to describe the problem and present the data.
"It takes a team of 8 mechanics at $30 per hour to build and test this engine. We have to hit a labor cost of $350 to price it competitively. We have built 20 engines in the past 2 months and have been coming down the learning curve pretty rapidly." She projected this data onto the screen:
|
Date
|
Time
|
|
4/1/2013
|
10.00
|
|
4/4/2013
|
9.65
|
|
4/7/2013
|
8.80
|
|
4/10/2013
|
7.75
|
|
4/13/2013
|
5.60
|
|
4/16/2013
|
5.00
|
|
4/19/2013
|
4.50
|
|
4/22/2013
|
4.95
|
|
4/25/2013
|
4.50
|
|
4/28/2013
|
4.00
|
|
5/1/2013
|
3.30
|
|
5/4/2013
|
3.50
|
|
5/7/2013
|
2.90
|
|
5/10/2013
|
2.85
|
|
5/13/2013
|
2.65
|
|
5116/2013
|
3.70
|
|
5/19/2013
|
2.00
|
|
5/22/2013
|
1.90
|
|
5/25/2013
|
1_85
|
|
5/28/2013
|
1.90
|