Product details

Paper Airplanes, Inc is a fictitious company organized to produce high-quality paper airplanes using aerodynamically superior paper and highly skilled labor. The company relies exclusively on college students for its labor and management pool. During a one hour class, students will be given an opportunity to 'work' for the company by actually producing paper airplanes. Specifically, student volunteers are asked to assume roles as direct laborers, production supervisors, a materials (paper) manager, and, of course, cost accountants (all students). The basic production process is then explained to the class, and student volunteers are given quick training on their roles. Students will also see a few partially completed airplanes from the prior period and will be told that these need to be completed during the upcoming production period. After the training, student laborers will be given just two minutes to actually produce as many airplanes as they can and send (fly) them to the next department. When a production supervisor states that the time is up, the laborers will stop their production immediately. Production supervisors will count completed airplanes (those flown into the classroom), and then all students will assume the role of cost accountants to prepare a weighted-average process costing report. They will need to consider actual production during class and take into account such issues as partially completed airplanes and cost per equivalent unit. This hands-on, visual case is very instructive in its simplicity and ability to actively engage students in learning a challenging topic. Within a short class period, students will have actually participated in a production process and learned all the complexities and difficulties in preparing a basic.