4. What did you fi nd most impressive about this company or its manufacturing processes? Based on what you read in the chapter, describe one thing the company could do differently to improve quality, increase productivity, or reduce inventory. Imagine that you arrive back at your dorm room one afternoon to fi nd your roommate watching a Mister Rogers rerun. When asked why, your roommate replies, “Management homework.” That may not be as crazy as it sounds. The late Fred Rogers, host of PBS’s Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, may well hold the record for factory tours. During his long career, he broadcast footage to millions of children showing how Cheerios, plastic drinking straws, raincoats, pasta, blue jeans, spoons, and a host of other products are made. He was even at Crayola when the one-billionth crayon rolled off the production line. (He also broadcast footage of how Crayola crayons are made and packaged.) • The Boeing Everett Tour Center outside Seattle introduces visitors to how Boeing makes its 747, 767, and 777 passenger jets.

• Steinway & Sons in Queens, New York, offers a two-and-a-half-hour tour that is like a master class.

Each Steinway piano takes about a year to build, so you will be able to see pianos at every stage of the production process.

• Ben & Jerry’s in Waterbury, Vermont, offers tours accompanied with a scoop of whatever fl avor ice cream was made that day.

• Tabasco Factory on Avery Island, Louisiana, is part factory tour, part nature preserve. You can see how the pepper sauce is aged in oak barrels and then step outside to see Bird City, a special structure devised by E. A. McIlhenny to provide a sanctuary for snowy egrets.

• Mack Truck has an assembly plant in Macungie, Pennsylvania. The production line is a mile and a half long, so wear comfortable shoes!

• Yuengling Brewery (which you read about at the beginning of Chapter 5) in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, also offers tours, which include a trip to the cave where the nation’s oldest brewery used to age its beer.

• Louisville Slugger in Louisville, Kentucky (where else?), offers a factory tour at the end of which you receive a miniature Slugger bat to take home.

• Harley-Davidson plants in Milwaukee, Kansas City, and York, Pennsylvania, offer factory tours for teens and adults.