Turn Lost Production into Profit. -Discrete Event Simulation Applied on Resetting Performance in Manufacturing Systems

Paper in proceeding, 2002

World-class utilization of manufacturing resources is of vital importance to any manufacturing enterprise in the global competition of today. This requirement calls for su-perior performance of all processes related to the manufac-turing of products. One of these processes is the resetting of machinery and equipment between two product runs, which will be the focus area of this text. This paper exam-ines to what extent Discrete Event Simulation (DES) can be applied to the evaluation of resetting performance in manufacturing systems. For this purpose, a DES model of a factory unit in Sweden is used for the research trials, de-rived from real manufacturing situations. During the case study, DES has shown to be a potential tool for the evalua-tion of resetting processes. The results from the simulation runs provided valuable information for improvement initia-tives. Among other findings a solution is proposed, that turns losses into profit.