Interactive textbook
Read the chapters, do the exercises at the end of sections, and get written feedback on your answers.
Your account comes from your course coordinator.
There is no sign-up.
The cases
The book teaches one method, Diagnosis, Analysis, Design, and applies it to two companies that come back throughout the book.
Orders take too long, work piles up between machines, and one machine limits the output of the whole plant. You measure what is going on and work out what to change.
What limits the flow, and why?
A start-up that makes compostable trays and lids. The factory does not exist yet. You help design its first production line, within limits on energy use and material loss.
Which design holds up when demand is uncertain?
Exercises
Many sections end with a short exercise. You write an answer, often 100 to 150 words or a calculation, and you can ask for feedback.
Check that you understand a concept: explain it in your own words, or tell two ideas apart.
Apply it: calculate, classify or build something, and improve it after feedback.
Compare options in a case and test the assumptions behind them.
Explain a decision to someone else, reflect on your reasoning, or apply a method to the other factory.
AI tutor
An AI tutor reads your answer together with the relevant part of the book, and comments on it.
The tutor says what is already good and what you could improve, criterion by criterion, in plain English.
Feedback is not a grade. If you disagree with it, you can say why.
Hints go step by step, and you can open the relevant book passage at any time. Using them is fine.
The tutor comments on your reasoning, not on your spelling or grammar.
The tutor can be wrong. If you have good reasons to keep your own view, keep it and discuss it with your lecturer.
Study tools
Pages or one long scroll, three typefaces, text size, a light, warm or dark theme, a full-screen reading mode, and search across the whole book.
Attach a note to a passage. Your notes are collected in a private notebook, which you can export.
Ask a question about the section you are reading. The answer is based on the book.
See which sections you have read and practised, and which exercises are worth another attempt.
Chapter 12 · Little's Law and Flow Baselines
A flow baseline describes how units move through a defined part of a production system. Start by specifying the flow unit and the system boundary.
Work-in-process (WIP) is the number of flow units inside that boundary. It includes units being processed and units waiting between activities.
Your note
WIP counts the waiting units too.
Privacy
When you ask for feedback, your answer and the relevant book text go to the AI service the university uses. Your name does not.
Notes are never sent to the AI. Your teacher sees a note only if you choose to share it.
Feedback is not a grade. Your earlier attempts are kept so you can compare them. Reading time is an estimate and is never used to rank students.
Help
Your course coordinator creates your account and gives you a username and a first password. At your first login, you choose a new password. There is no sign-up.
Ask your course coordinator to reset it. There is no email reset.
No. Feedback is not part of your grade. The tutor can be wrong, and you can always respond to its feedback.
A recent web browser. A laptop works best for the activities; reading also works on a tablet or phone.
In English, like the rest of the course. The tutor comments on your reasoning, not on your spelling or grammar.
Use the username and password from your course coordinator.