Learning Objective: Create a plan for the equipment you will use and the production of your products.

Assignment: Creating a Production Plan

For this assignment, you will not create a complete operations plan but will concentrate on your equipment and production facility. This will give you a starting place for the formal operations plan you will need to do for your business later.

Keep your report to no more than 1500 words.

Specialized Equipment

Depending on the size of your operation, you will need specialized commercial equipment. For this assignment when we refer to specialized equipment, we mean commercial equipment used in chocolate and confection making such as enrobers, tempering machines, vibrating tables, depositors, extruders, etc. The program's Module 2 lecture entitledChocolate Equipment Suppliers will be useful in identifying the type of equipment available before you approach local distributors. We highly recommend that you start your research early in the program.

Items such as mixers, storage units, trays, sinks, tables, stoves, refrigerators, air conditioners and small appliances as well containers and utensils are readily available from restaurant equipment, department and kitchen stores so we won't concern ourselves with those for this assignment.

You will report on your research findings for this assignment by answering the following questions:

• What specialized chocolate making equipment will you be planning to use in your operation?
• Who distributes this equipment in your local area? If there is no local supplier, how are you going to source the equipment?
• Approximately how long will it take from order to delivery of the equipment?
• What is the cost for each piece of equipment?

Production Plan

You will report on the organization of your production facility by creating the following:

• Discuss the flow of your production process for your most important product. This should be a list of steps as I used in the lecture: Planning for Production which will be available when Module 5 opens. 
• A list of the equipment you will need in order to produce and store this product. 
• Describe in words, not visually, the rough physical layout of your production facility including where you will store both raw ingredients and finished products. The reason we don't want you to make a visual representation of your layout is that we have had problems many times in the past with accessing drawings in separate files. Just walk us through the space verbally in your report itself.
• Determine how many people the process will require and how long do you think a typical production cycle will take to complete.

Note on your report content: what we are looking for is a concise report on your research or practice coupled with a thoughtful response to our questions. We are grading strictly on content - not how well or how much you write. There is a maximum of 1500 words allowed in the box but we are in no way expecting or want you to fill it.

Click on the "Add Submission" button below to submit your assignment.

When you click on the "Add Submission" button - a text submission box will appear at the bottom of the page. You may have to scroll down to see that. You have a choice of typing your report directly into the box and then clicking the "Save changes" button below it to submit.

OR WE VERY, VERY HIGHLY SUGGEST that you create your assignment report in another editor in your computer and save that.Then copy and paste the text in your saved report into the submission box and click the "Save changes" button to submit. This process makes sure that you have a saved copy of your report in case something happens when you submit.

Confirming your assignment submission and viewing grades:

Once you've submitted your assignment, A message appears that says "Your changes have been saved". Also you will see under the Assignment Due Date a new line that starts with"Last Edited....". That confirms that your assignment has been submitted and when.

Don't forget to be generous and share a copy of this assignment report with your classmates by posting it to the Chef's Table in the appropriate assignment discussion.

We wait until after the Assignment due date (see below) to start grading the assignments - you can expect to see your grade posted within 10 working days after the due date has passed.