‘VISA’ — The variable incident simulation apparatus

The difficulty about trying to train people in production control and planning is that you can't bring the factory to the classroom. Nor can you take the class to the factory floor for the weeks or months students would need to get a useful insight into problems and techniques. Convenience is a problem, but the crux of the matter is the time element — it might take a good month for sufficient of the thinly spread experience to be collected. This is a case where the real situation is less valuable for training purposes than a simulated situation. Still less valuable would be trying to teach by setting paper problems: the all‐important ‘feel’ is lost completely.