Barry Render

OM in the News: Why GE Builds More Factories Overseas

The GE factory under construction in Marhaura is scheduled to produce 1,000 locomotives for Indian Railways.

GE could hardly have picked a less hospitable spot for its new locomotive factory—but then again, it didn’t have much choice. The land in Marhaura, India regularly floods in the rainy season. The facility required concrete pilings poured 82 feet below ground, on account of earthquakes. When finished, the factory—the centerpiece of a $200 million investment—will sit 600 miles southeast of Delhi in the state of Bihar, a place with a rich history of government corruption scandals.

“To win big contracts, GE is trading a global footprint designed for maximum efficiencies of scale for one that means greater face-to-face exposure in local markets,” writes The Wall Street Journal (June 30, 2017). The remoteness of the Marhaura factory adds cost and complexity to the locomotive project. This is GE in the age of localization—a series of factors that are forcing manufacturers to put down deeper local roots to win business.

Once-impoverished nations such as India, China and Indonesia are becoming economic powers and demanding that companies not just ship them goods, but invest/build locally, teach local workers new skills and share technological know-how. GE has established engineering and research centers in nations such as Poland, Mexico and Qatar, and flexible factories in countries such as Brazil and India, which can easily switch production lines in case political winds or market preferences change.

In 1982, 80% of GE’s revenue came from the U.S. Today, it’s only 30%. Back then, GE operated 135 factories in 25 foreign countries. Now it has 325 plants across 40 countries. Jobs have followed the changes. GE employs 104,000 workers in the U.S., compared 261,000 workers in 1982. In China, GE’s workforce has doubled in the past decade to 22,000.

Classroom discussion questions:

Discuss GE’s decision to locate in Marhaura–plusses and minuses.
What factors should a firm consider in global location decisions?

OM in the News: UPS and the Golf Cart Controversy

UPS already uses golf carts in Florida, as seen with the author and his local driver

“United Parcel Service uses jumbo jets, hybrid electric vans and, sometimes, drones to deliver nearly 5 billion packages each year,” writes The Wall Street Journal (June 30, 2017). But a push into a less glamorous transportation method—golf carts—has touched a nerve with drivers in one of its home bases. UPS can now use golf carts to deliver packages in Kentucky– thanks to a new state law allowing delivery drivers to use the vehicles on public roads. The company is using retrofitted golf carts to complement its fleet of brown delivery trucks primarily during the winter holidays, when daily volumes can rise 2/3 from normal levels.

But union leaders argue that having the vehicles share the road with cars and trucks puts workers at risk. They also object because at UPS golf cart drivers earn less than traditional truck drivers.

The golf carts, which are modified with a flatbed or pull a trailer containing the packages, are driven by part-time workers. The carts generally don’t go faster than 15 mph and are only allowed to operate in residential areas and on public roadways with a posted speed limit of 35 mph or less.

Controlling costs is a major issue at both UPS and FedEx, which have taken steps to optimize driver routes through routing systems, automate more sorting facilities and deliver more packages to drop-off points like stores. UPS has a number of unique delivery methods to accommodate local quirks, including horse-drawn carriages on Michigan’s Mackinac Island and gondolas in Venice, Italy.

Classroom discussion questions:

What are the advantages of this new logistics tool?
Disadvantages?

OM in the News: The Airlines’ On Time Flight Game

Today’s pop quiz: If Delta and American both have flights from Dallas to Detroit leaving at 11 a.m., and both flights take 2 hours, 53 minutes to get to the gate in Detroit, which one is late? The answer: American Flight 43. American schedules that trip at 2 hours, 38 minutes. Delta Flight 653 is scheduled to make the trip in 2 hours, 47 minutes, with 9 minutes of extra cushion. The same travel time could leave American 15 minutes late—tardy in DOT statistics. Delta, only 6 minutes overdue, would be considered on time.

“Every airline gives itself extra cushion in its schedule to account for weather delays, mechanical repairs, air-traffic control slow-ups and a thousand other things that leave planes and passengers stewing,” writes The Wall Street Journal (June 29, 2017). In 2016, 86.5% of Delta domestic flights arrived on time under the DOT’s definition, which is at the gate within 14 minutes of scheduled time. That was best among the 4 biggest U.S. carriers. This on-time performance is a competitive battle. Reliability matters to frequent fliers. Several airlines pay employees bonuses based on on-time arrivals.

This year, Delta’s flights have been scheduled about 9 minutes longer than they actually took, on average, a 6% cushion. In 2009, Delta’s scheduled just 2 minutes of padding, or 1.4%. That year only 78.6% of Delta flights arrived on-time. Better-managing maintenance and employees played a major role.

The airline says it increased scheduled time and decreased ground time for planes. Often airlines bolster ground time, so a 15 minute delay doesn’t impact the next flight. Delta chose the opposite approach: increasing scheduled time– called “block time,” so 80% or more of its flights arrive exactly on schedule, then shortening ground time between flights.

Every minute added to schedules can increase costs: higher crew pay for trips at many carriers, more planes and gates needed to fly the same number of trips. Adding one minute to every flight costs about $10 million in annual expenses.

Classroom discussion questions:

What OM tools can be used to deal with airline scheduling problems?
Why do airlines increase their block time?

OM in the News: 500,000 Tons of Steel. 14 Jobs

The “pulpit” at Donawitz, where just 3 employees control the plant.

The Austrian village of Donawitz has been an iron-smelting center since the 1400s. With the opening of Voestalpine AG’s new rolling mill this year, the industry appears secure. “What’s less certain are the jobs,” writes Businessweek (June 26, 2017). The plant needs just 14 employees to make 500,000 tons of steel wire a year—vs. as many one thousand in a mill with similar capacity built in the 1960s.

Inside the facility, red-hot metal snakes its way along a 2,300-foot production line. Yet the floors are spotless, the only noise is a gentle hum, and most of the time the place is deserted except for 3 technicians who sit high above the line, monitoring output on a bank of flatscreens. “In the long run we will lose most of the classic blue-collar workers, people doing the hot and dirty jobs in coking plants or around the blast furnaces. This will all be automated,” says Voestalpine’s CEO.

Over the past 20 years, the number of worker-hours needed to make a ton of steel industrywide has fallen from 700 to 250, as new control processes and innovations (such as casting steel closer to the shape of the finished product) have improved productivity. From 2008 through 2015, Europe’s steel workforce shrank by almost 84,000 jobs—about 20%, and experts predict employment in the sector will decline another 20% over the coming decade.

While about 300 other workers in Donawitz carry out support roles such as shipping logistics and running the internal rail system, the mill itself is operated by 14 people. The technicians sitting in what’s called the “pulpit”—a structure like a ship’s bridge high above the plant floor—mostly watch for warning signs such as spikes in temperature or pressure.

Classroom discussion questions:

What other industries are seeing a similar job compression?
What skills do the new steel plant workers need?

OM in the News: The Last Mile at Peapod Can Make or Break the Supply Chain

Conveyor belts and sorting areas at Peapod’s warehouse in Jersey City.

“Delivering food requires military precision,” writes The New York Times (June 25, 2017). People expect their food to arrive at specific times. Delivering perishables is much trickier than delivering T-shirts, books or pretty much anything else people can buy online. The biggest challenge is that groceries must stay cold for hours at a time. But there are other complications. Bananas and apples give off fumes that can hurt loose leaf lettuce, so they can’t be stored too close. Tomatoes lose flavor when they cool to below 55 degrees. Milk always has to be packaged upright.

All the complexity adds costs in an industry where profit margins are already thin. Numerous start-ups have failed in grocery delivery, making groceries the last frontier of online shopping. Even Amazon, which has perfected its logistics, hasn’t mastered the art of profitably delivering perishable food in metropolitan areas. But it just made a big bet, purchasing Whole Foods in a $13 billion deal that will give it access to 400 stores in major population centers — places that may have walk-up apartments, limited parking, and other urban obstacles.

Every second counts. Grocery delivery companies like Peapod have to calculate exactly how long each individual order will take, and monitor traffic patterns and accidents for any disruptions their trucks may face. At Peapod’s warehouse in Jersey City, a 400,000-sq.ft. facility that services NY and New Jersey, 425 people bustle in and out of the meat room, the produce room, a rotisserie room filled with rotating chickens. Workers load items into bright green temperature-controlled bins called “totes.” Once perishable items make it into the tote, the clock starts ticking. Peapod has 19-21 hours to get totes to customers, and everything has to stay at the right temperature that whole time. A break in the cold chain on the way to a customer means even the healthiest-looking berries can rot.

Classroom discussion questions:

What are the major OM issues a firm like Peapod faces?
How does Peapod differ from Amazon?

OM in the News: Chipmaking Moved to Asia–Miscarriages Followed

Koo Sung-ae has lupus. She worked in a Korean Samsung factory for 5 years. Three years ago her husband gave her one of his kidneys to save her life.

Businessweek’s (June 19, 2017) feature story, “The Dark Side of Asian Microchip Production,” reveals U.S. chipmakers realized they had a toxic problem, so they outsourced it–to Asia. Twenty-five years ago, U.S. tech companies pledged to stop using chemicals that were proven to cause miscarriages and birth defects. But they did not ensure their Asian suppliers do the same. The 8 page article, which you can use when discussing ethics in OM, explains that that chip production is mostly about chemistry.

Chemicals and light combine to print circuits onto silicon wafers. Intel was “putting into industrial production a lot of really nasty chemicals. There was just no knowledge of these things, and we were pouring stuff down into the city sewer system,” said one of Intel’s founders. Years later, when workers dug up the pipes beneath Intel, they discovered the bottom was completely eaten out. Authorities ended up creating more hazardous waste sites in the heart of Silicon Valley than in any other place in the U.S.

Making computer chips involves hundreds of chemicals. The women on the production lines work in “cleanrooms” and wear protective suits, but that is for the chips’ protection, not theirs. The women are exposed to chemicals that include reproductive toxins, mutagens, and carcinogens. The result: workers’ unborn children can suffer birth defects or childhood diseases, and the women can develop cancer that does not show up until long after exposure.

Thousands of women at chip plants across Asia are still exposed to toxins called EGEs. IBM studies, more than 2 decades ago, showed the risks could still persist overseas. IBM knew that EGEs were cheap, effective, and abundantly available and that less-dangerous alternatives were far more expensive. Its published report cited the higher costs of safety.

Classroom discussion questions:

What other industries has the U.S. outsourced that were dirty or dangerous?
Why has it been so difficult to monitor the chip supply chain?

OM in the News: 3-D Printers and Jet Parts

A worker operates one of the large-scale 3-D printers developed by Norsk

Aerospace suppliers are eager to start using 3-D printing technology to turn out large, high-volume structural parts for jetliners, but U.S. FAA safety regulators are taking a go-slow approach toward approving such production. “Three-dimensional printing is a darling of the aerospace industry because it is relatively inexpensive compared with more-prevalent ways of making components,” writes The Wall Street Journal (June 21, 2017). Experts see the potential of eventually using 3-D technology to produce thousands of different parts at 30% lower cost than traditional milling methods.

But the FAA has to approve the overall process and certify that the cutting-edge, plasma-deposition technology is reliable enough to ensure identical strength and other properties from batch to batch. The Norwegian firm, Norsk Titanium, which has been laying the groundwork for the initiative for several years, already has FAA approval to produce a limited category of structural titanium parts for Boeing’s 787. By using titanium wire, rather than powder, as the raw material, the company is able to tackle larger parts and churn them out much faster than would be possible otherwise. Norsk’s 3-D printed production runs can be 100 times faster than those using powder, meaning some parts could be ready in a matter of hours, instead of days or weeks.

There are scores of companies itching to join the 3-D printing trend for aerospace alone. A large jetliner has between 300 and 1,000 structural titanium parts. GE is using a different, more time-consuming process for more intricate parts. It has approval to print thousands of fuel nozzles, for jet engines powering new planes from Boeing and Airbus , featuring complex internal structures that would be impossible to produce by traditional methods.

Classroom discussion questions:

Why is 3-D printing a major issue for operations managers in aerospace?
What is the FAA issue here?

OM in the News: The Shopping Mall With No Stores

At Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn, Mich., Ford converted a former 240,000 sq. ft. Lord & Taylor department store into a workspace for almost 2,000 engineering and purchasing staff.

As retailers close bricks-and-mortar stores at an accelerating pace, shopping-center landlords are facing a vexing question: What to do with all this empty space? “Their solutions,” writes The Wall Street Journal (June 12, 2017), “are varied but all have a common element: reducing, or even eliminating, retail from the equation.”

Some landlords plug empty spaces with churches, for-profit schools and random enterprises while they figure out a long-term plan. Others see a future in mixed-use real estate, converting malls into streetscapes with restaurants, offices and housing. And some are razing properties altogether and turning them into entertainment or industrial parks.

A construction binge in the 1980s and ’90s left the U.S. oversaturated with malls. Growth in online sales and declining demand for full-priced goods are causing retailers to shrink their store fleets and divert resources to e-commerce platforms.

More than 8,600 stores are expected to close this year. Analysts predict that 400 or so of the 1,100 malls in the U.S. will close in the coming years.

One strategy is to convert enclosed malls into open-air properties that landlords call “lifestyle centers,” with apartments, theaters, grocery stores, medical offices and other conveniences—and much less retail.

Classroom discussion questions:

Are malls easily convertible to an office layout remodeling? Why?
Provide local examples of how malls are adapting to the changing (shrinking) retail store climate.

OM in the News: When a Company Fails at Quality Control

In the late 1990s, GM got an unexpected and enticing offer. A little-known Japanese supplier, Takata, had designed a much cheaper automotive airbag. So GM turned to its airbag supplier, Autoliv, and asked it to match the cheaper design or risk losing the automaker’s business. But when Autoliv’s scientists studied the Takata airbag, they found that it relied on a dangerously volatile compound in its inflater, a critical part that causes the airbag to expand. In spite of the report GM chose the Takata product.

The result of failed quality control: Takata, behind the biggest safety recall in automotive history, is filing for bankruptcy, says Industry Week (June 15, 2017). Its liabilities exceed $9 billion. Takata’s faulty air bag inflators have been linked to at least 17 deaths worldwide. Mounting liabilities from having to replace an estimated more than 100 million air bags force Takata to seek an acquirer that could get it through the costly restructuring process.

Honda, a Takata shareholder and the auto-parts maker’s largest customer, first started recalling Accord and Civic models in 2008. The supplier’s air bag inflators use a propellant that can be rendered unstable after long-term exposure to heat and humidity, leading them to rupture and spray deadly metal shards at vehicle occupants.

More than a dozen automakers have recalled vehicles since, include VW, Toyota and GM. Takata in January agreed to pay $1 billion to U.S. regulators, consumers and carmakers. The settlement includes a $25 million criminal fine, $125 million in victim compensation and $850 million to compensate automakers who have suffered losses from massive recalls.

Classroom discussion questions:

Should automakers assume some of the blame for this supply chain problem?
Compare this to other recent auto industry quality and ethical blunders.

OM in the News: G.E.’s Long History of Innovation

A 1910 washing machine with a G.E. motor

G.E.’s rare change in leadership this week (from Jeff Immelt to John Flannery) brings to mind my own years of working at that firm’s jet engine division in Cincinnati many years ago. Long a leader in new product development and innovation (Chapter 5), The New York Times (June 13, 2017) provides just a few of the company’s notable products and periods:

1879 Incandescent Electric Lamp. Working at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J., cofounder Thomas Edison created an incandescent light bulb that burned for more than 40 hours. Sixty years later, G.E. created new fluorescent lamps. In 2010, the company released LED bulbs that required 77% less energy and would last for 22 years.

1882 The Age of Electric Power. The nation’s first commercial power station generated electricity for 59 customers in Manhattan. To win over skeptics, the electricity was free for the first 3 months.

1893 Electric Locomotive. The company developed a 30-ton electric locomotive that could reach 30 miles per hour without the use of steam power.

1896 X-Ray machine. A year after X-rays were first discovered, the firm created an X-ray tube.

1906 Voice Radio Broadcast. A high-frequency alternator made possible the first voice radio broadcast. Before that time, radio had been operated as a series of dots and dashes transmitted by telegraph.

1912 Vacuum Tubes. The company came up with a glass-encased vacuum through which an electrical current could flow. G.E.’s tube could transmit up to 50,000 volts and made possible advances used in radio and X-ray.

1927 First Home Test of a TV. A man enjoyed a cigarette and a ukulele player hummed a song in the first demonstration of TV, broadcast to 3 homes in Schenectady, N.Y.

1941 Commercial Jet Engines. G.E. introduced the most popular jet engine in history, the J-47, capable of working at high altitudes and in low temperatures.

1957 Nuclear Power. The world’s first commercial nuclear power plant was the Shippingport Atomic Power Station near Pittsburgh. The $120 million plant initially supplied 60,000 kw, enough energy for 120,000 people.

1962 Laser Lights. The laser light discovery was an invention used to communicate by light waves. Over the years, the company has used lasers in everything from processing solar panel materials to drilling holes in aircraft blades.

OM in the News: Revenue Management and “Hello, Dolly!”

Thanks to what’s known as revenue management or dynamic pricing, in which costs shift constantly to match demand, top ticket prices for hit shows on Broadway have hit previously unheard-of levels. (Annual Broadway ticket sales reached a record $1.45 billion this season).

Last month the top box-office price for “Hello, Dolly!” was $748. For the phenomenon “Hamilton,” it was $849. Online this week the top price for a performance of “Hello, Dolly!” at several ticket resellers was $1,450. “People have been whipped into a frenzy by the top prices,” said the president of the Disney, producer of the current, dynamically priced hit musicals “The Lion King” and “Aladdin.”

As more transactions shift to the internet, consumers are getting used to a world in which dynamic pricing is increasingly the norm, writes The New York Times (June 9, 2017). We have pretty much accepted it for airline fares; airlines pioneered the concept of revenue management years ago. It has since spread to hotel rooms, sporting events, concerts and designer clothing — and is likely to be used for just about any highly differentiated product where demand may at times far exceed supply. The dynamic pricing algorithm, a software tool that draws on data for millions of past audience members, recommends prices for several different types of performances — peak dates like Christmas, off-peak dates like a weeknight in February, and periods in between.

“At the most basic level, all pricing is about allocating scarce resources,” said the head of optimization sciences at Uber. Surge pricing is another form of dynamic pricing. “I’ve worked in theater, concerts and sports,” he said, “and they all have a similar problem: For extreme hits, demand at what people would consider a reasonable price far exceeds supply.”

Classroom discussion questions:

Why is revenue management a critical OM tool at airlines and hotels?
How does the Orlando Magic use dynamic pricing? (Review the video case in Chapter 13).

Guest Post: Productivity, Forecasting and Excel with Real Data

Our Guest Post today comes from Howard Weiss, who is Professor of Operations Management at Temple University. Howard has developed both POM for Windows and Excel OM for our text.

I often search the web for real data that I can use for forecasting, and just came across data from Lowes 10 – Year Financial Information report that can be used for both productivity and forecasting.

The report has 5 sections, with 2 that are of major interest to OM. The 1st is titled “Stores and People” and lists the productivity inputs and outputs of: (1)Number of stores; (2)Selling square feet; (3)Number of employees; (4)Total customer transactions; (5)Average ticket.

The next section includes the net sales. I have the students perform several exercises using these data. Here are 5 years of past data.

The Exercises

Exercise 1 – Data integrity: For each of the years the net sales should be equal to the anticipated net sales (my definition) given by the average ticket multiplied by the number of transactions. Of course, the anticipated and reported net sales are not exactly equal. I ask the students to compute the percentage difference between the reported net sales and the anticipated net sales and also to determine the MAPE differences.

Exercise 2 – Productivity: For each year, there are 3 productivity measures that can be computed comparing net sales to number of stores, selling square feet and number of employees. Unfortunately, there are no multipliers available to compute the multifactor productivity measures for the 10 years.

Exercise 3 – Productivity change: For all years except the first, I ask the students to compute the productivity change for each of the 3 productivity measures. There is one small issue the students need to recognize. The data is given as most recent first.

Exercise 4 –Graph in Excel: I ask the students to graph the 3 sets of productivity measures. If the students create scatter graphs using the dates in row 3 and the productivity measures that they create in a row below the data then the graph will be fine. If the students create a line graph using only the computed productivity measures then the graph will run backwards. That is, the time axis will be backwards. This is important for the final exercise.

Exercise 5 – Regression/Trend Line – I ask the students to draw a regression/trend line for each of the three measures. I have shown my students that right-clicking on the graph is the easiest way to create the line. I also ask the students to find the three average productivity changes based on the slope of the line in each of the three graphs.

The students very much appreciate applying Productivity to real data, using data that has more than 2 periods and having the opportunity to work in Excel, especially with the graphing capability and regression capability within the graph option.

OM in the News: And China Outsources to— Ethiopia?

Workers on an assembly line at a Huajian International shoe factory in Dongguan.

With many workers in the Haijian International shoe factory in China complaining about excessive hours and seeking higher pay, that company is sending 1,000s of their jobs to Ethiopia. This as Huajian faces scrutiny from labor activists for how it treats workers. The activists’ focus points to changing labor conditions in China as manufacturers try to get more work out of an increasingly expensive labor pool. But deep economic and demographic shifts mean a lot of low-end work — like making shoes — doesn’t offer huge profit in China.

Today, Chinese workers are less cheap and less willing. More young people are going to college and want office jobs. The blue-collar work force is aging. Long workdays in a factory no longer appeal to those older workers, even with the promise of overtime pay. Such tensions are fueling the drive of Huajian to move work to Ethiopia.

“In many respects, China’s economy is maturing,” writes The Wall Street Journal (June 1, 2017). The number of people who turn 18 each year and do not enroll in college — the group that might consider factory work — had plummeted to 10.5 million by 2015 from 18.5 million in 2000. Wages in Dongguan have increased ninefold since the late 1990s. Huajian peaked at 26,000 employees in China in 2006. Staffing is now down to 7,000-8,000 thanks to automation and the shift to Ethiopia. Citing labor costs and the country’s foreign investment push, Huajian is building a sprawling complex of factories on the southern outskirts of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. Huajian’s shoe factories there already have 5,000 employees. When finished in 4 years, the Addis Ababa complex will be ringed by a replica of the Great Wall of China.

Classroom discussion questions:

Why leave China?
Why Ethiopia? Why not the US?

OM in the News: BMW’s Supply Chain Disruption

BMW is halting or slowing production of certain models in response to a shortage of parts caused by delivery problems from first-tier parts supplier, Bosch. “The hiccups show how dependent manufacturers are on a global, smoothly running supply chain,” writes The Wall Street Journal (May 30, 2017). Even small disruptions anywhere along the line can cascade into delays in getting the company’s big money-making products off the assembly line and into showrooms.

In BMW’s case, the culprit is a “Lenkergetriebe,” or steering gear, manufactured by Stuttgart-based auto-parts giant Bosch and used in BMW’s Series-1,2,3, and 4 models. “Our supplier Bosch is not currently able to provide us with a sufficient number of steering gears,” said a BMW exec. Bosch, in turn, said the trouble arose when a 2nd-tier supplier in Italy experienced difficulties in delivering the casing for the steering gears.

As a result of the shortages, production is restricted at several BMW plants in Germany, China, and South Africa. “Automotive value chains are international. An interruption in delivery of parts from a partner in Europe can therefore also have implications in China,” said the BMW exec. “The vehicle is not complete until all parts, most of which are supplied just-in-time, are installed. It is, therefore, understandable how a missing part—even if only a small one, as in this case—can have a major impact.”

Classroom discussion questions:

What can BMW do to prevent such supply chain disruptions in the future?
What are the differences between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd tier suppliers? Provide an example of each in a non-automotive industry.

Guest Blog: Effects of Technology Use on Collaborative Learning Results

Our Guest Post comes from Phillip Flamm, who teaches Operations Management in the ISQS department at Texas Tech University. This is his 9th posting on our OM blog.

The Rawls College of Business here at Texas Tech U. has recently added a “technology room.” This room has 9 rectangular tables and will seat teams of 5. Each table has a large monitor at the head of the table. At the front of the room is a podium with a large screen monitor behind it. Having plugged in their laptops to the room’s web site, team members have several options:

View the master podium screen on the table’s large monitor
View the laptop screen of one of the team members
View specific documents

Team members interact as follows:

Team members take very comprehensive notes in class (lecture is structured with accompanying power point slides)
Team posts one member’s notes from the most recent lecture on the table monitor
Members go around the table in order discussing the notes they have for each power point slide
Extended discussion may result if there are questions about the content (each member offers their individual understanding of the concepts)
Member with their notes on the monitor makes changes or additions based on a clearer understanding of the material (all members can see changes as they are made)
After reviewing the most recent lecture they move on to the next most recent, etc., until all lectures (for the next exam) are covered
Every lecture is covered every time the team meets (past lecture notes generally go faster than the most recent)
The posting member distributes a copy of the updated, more descriptive notes at the conclusion of the meeting

Team members experience faster learning rates, increased retention, and better understanding of quantitative material. To exhibit these advantages the team members’ average exam was 15 points higher than the other 380 course students on exams this semester.