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Simulation to evaluate several critical factors effecting manufacturing.

Conference Paper · July 2007

DOI: 10.1145/1357910.1358002 · Source: DBLP

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 Simulation to Evaluate Several Critical Factors Effecting Manufacturing
Bernard J. Schroer and Gregory A. Harris
University of Alabama in Huntsville; Huntsville, AL 35899
harrisg@uah.edu

Dietmar P.F. Moeller

University of Hamburg; Hamburg, Germany

Keywords The models developed here are located on a dedicated

Lean manufacturing, process variability, Kanban, vendor- computer at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The
managed inventory, discrete event simulation computer is connected to the Internet continuously. Remote
access from the University of Hamburg is accomplished by
Abstract clicking on the “Remote Desktop Connection.”
This paper investigates the effect of several critical factors
on manufacturing: 1) takt time, 2) line balancing, 3) process 2. MANUFACTURING LINE
variability, 4) work-in-process between stations, and 5) The manufacturing cell in Figure 1 consists of six stations.
location of fulfillment/containment centers. Several discrete The mean station cycle times are given in each block.
event simulation models were written to evaluate the impact Unlimited work-in-process is allowed between the stations.
of each factor on production. ProcessModel (1999) was used to develop a simulation of
the manufacturing line in Figure 1. However, the problem
1. INTRODUCTION could have been solved analytically without simulation.
Manufacturing systems are complex in nature with many
inputs, processes and outputs. Opportunities abound for
inefficiencies and mistakes that affect the ability of the
system to deliver products to customers. The principles of
lean manufacturing mandate the evaluation of all factors
that would potentially impact production. The factors that
can negatively impact production, called wastes, can be
segregated into eight categories. These categories are 1)
Overproduction 2) Inventory 3) Defects 4) Transportation 5)
Motion 6) Overprocessing 7) Waiting and 8) Under utilized
people. Critical characteristics of production processes
include takt time, line balance, process variability and
location of fulfillment/containment centers.
Figure 1. Manufacturing Cell
Lean manufacturing is defined as a systematic approach to
identifying and eliminating waste (non-value-added
3. TAKT TIME
activities) through continuous improvement by flowing the
Takt time is defined as the available time per time period
product at the pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection
divided by customer demand per time period. For example,
(NIST, 1998).
if the available time is eight hours and customer demand is
2,880 units, then the Takt time is 28,800 seconds/2,880
A number of tools are used to identify and eliminate waste
units, or 10 seconds. Therefore, no operation can exceed 10
including value stream mapping, 5S, waste identification,
seconds in order to meet customer demand. If the takt time
single minute exchange of die (SMED), kanban, cellular
is exceeded, then ways must be found to improve the
manufacturing and total productive maintenance (Grief,
process, reallocate work among the operators, or improve
1991; Imai, 1986; Nakajima, 1988; Ohno, 1988; Rother and
the method.
Shook, 1999; and Shingo, 1983). This paper looks at these
critical characteristics through several simplified simulation
Figure 2 is a comparison of station cycle times in Figure 1
models.
with a Takt time of 10 seconds. The cycle times at Stations
3 and 6 should be reduced through a continuous
improvement activity. A Kaizen event, a focused, usually 2
to 5 day continuous improvement activity, could be used to
improve the methods or reallocate some of the work content
to Stations 1 and 5, to allow the process to meet then
customer demand.
works on a part is 60 seconds/6 operators, or 10 seconds.
The average station cycle times at Stations 3 and 6 with two
machines at each station were 12 seconds/2 operators, or 6
seconds. Production is now 28,800 seconds/10 seconds, or
2,880 parts, and an average WIP of 2 parts.

Adding a seventh and eighth operator will not increase

production since the maximum station cycle time, now
stations 2 and 4, is still 10 seconds. However, with seven
or eight operators, average WIP increased to 810 parts (See
Figure 4).
Time

Production
Daily Production WIP

3000 2,880 2,880 2,880

2000

Figure 2. Station cycle times compared with Takt time

1000 810 810

4. LINE BALANCING
2
Daily production as a function of the number of operators is
given in Figure 3. Note that adding a sixth operator did not 6 7 8
Number of Operators (two machines at STA3 and STA6)
increase production and instead increased WIP to 1,350
parts. Therefore, the maximum production and the lowest
work-in-process are achieved with five operators.
Figure 4. Production and WIP as function of number of
operators (with two machines at STA3 and STA6)
Daily Production

3000
Production 2,440 2,440 5. KANBAN CAPACITY
WIP
Let us assume after applying several lean manufacturing
2000 1920
principles that all the mean station cycle times are now 10
1,440 seconds. However, most manufacturing processes have
1,350 variability. Lean manufacturing stresses reducing
960 variability by continuously improving the process.
1000
Variability can be introduced into the simulation by
480
changing the station cycle times from constants to
distributions such as triangular distributions.
0 0 0 0 2

1 2 3 4 5 6 Kanban capacity is the maximum number of parts allowed

Number of Operators
Figure 3. Production and WIP as function of number of
operators
One common approach to increasing production is to
increase capacity by adding additional machines at the
bottlenecks at Stations 3 and 6 in Figure 1 because of the
12-second cycle times. If another machine is added at each
of these two stations, the total cycle time is still 60 seconds.
If we assume six operators the average time an operator
at the operation. Figure 5 is a plot of production as a
function of cycle time variability. Unlimited work-in-
process inventory was permitted between the stations. The
production remained constant at 2,880 units when
increasing the variability from a constant of 10 seconds to a
triangular distribution with increasing variability.
Figure 6 is a plot of production as a function of Kanban
capacity, or allowable work-in-process between stations.
The production remained at 2,880 with a constant cycle time
of 10 seconds and a Kanban capacity of zero, one, and two.
Figure 5. Production as function of cycle time with
unlimited WIP between stations
With a cycle time distribution of T(9,10,11) and a Kanban
capacity of zero, the production was 2,764. As the Kanban
capacity increased to one, production increased to
2,873/eight hour shift. Increasing the Kanban to two had
only a small increase on production. Therefore, with a cycle
time distribution of T(9,10,11) the optimum Kanban
capacity between stations is one.
With cycle times of greater variability (i.e., T(8,10,12) and
T(7,10,13)) and as the Kanban limits between stations
increased, the production also increased and slowly
approached the theoretical maximum production of 2,880.
For example, the simulation was run with a cycle time
distribution T(7,10,l3). The production was 2,554 with a
Kanban limit of zero, 2,812 with a Kanban of one, and
2,847 with a Kanban of two.
Figure 6. Production as function of maximum allowed WIP
6. VENDOR MANAGED INVENTORY
Vendor managed inventory (VMI) is a supply chain strategy
and business model where the manufacturer provides
information to suppliers, or a fulfillment/containment
center, and the fulfillment center takes full responsibility for
maintaining an agreed inventory of parts usually near the
manufacturer.
VMI assures that parts will always be available for the
manufacturer. VMI reduces inventory in the supply chain
between the suppliers and manufacturer by using electronic
data interchange and other statistical methodologies to
forecast and maintain adequate inventory and correct
inventory in the supply chain (Disney and Towill, 2003;
Starling et al., 2006).
Figure 7 is the conceptual framework for the vendor
managed inventory (VMI) model used by a manufacturer, in
this case an assembly plant. The model consists of three
elements: assembly line that is similar to the manufacturing
line in Figure 1, fulfillment/containment center, and three
suppliers. The model also has a number of inventory
stations for parts at the assembly line and at the
fulfillment/containment center. ProcessModel was used to
develop a simulation of the problem.
Assembly Line VMI Center Suppliers
Incoming assemblies
Station 1 Inv Inv Supplier 1
Fulfillment/
Station 2 Inv Containment Inv Supplier 2
Center
Station 3 Inv Inv Supplier 3
Finished assemblies
Figure 7. Conceptual framework of VMI model
7. DATA ANALYSIS OF VMI MODEL
This section is an analysis of only the vendor managed
inventory model presented in Section 6 and Figure 7.
The inventory at station STA1 is named Part1, station STA2
is Part2 and station STA3 is Part3 (Reference Figure 7).
The maximum allowed inventory between assembly stations
is zero. Some of the simulation results with a run time of
40 hours are:
  Production - 215
 Current inventory at assembly -2 Part1, 3 Part2, 4
Part3
 Current inventory at fulfillment - 94 Part1, 100
Part2, 0 Part3
 Total parts delivered to assembly - 210 Part1, 210
Part2, 210 Part3
 Total parts delivered to fulfillment - 300 Part1, 300
Part2, and 200 Part3
 All stations were busy at end of simulation
7.2 Reorder Point (ROP) for Parts from Supplier3
Figure 9 is a plot of production versus ROP at Fulfillment
Center for parts from Supplier 3. With a ROP of 15, 25 or
35 there was no increase in production. However, a
decrease in ROP to 5 reduced production to 215.
240
Theoretical production 240

Production
 Station utilization - 100% Station1, 90% Station2,
90% Station3
220
Production increased with an input queue of one (the input
queue was 0 for the baseline run). Likewise, station
utilization increased to 100% for Station1, 99% for Station2
and 98% for Station3. The production of 235 with a
Kanban of one closely approximated the theoretical 200
production of 240. Increasing the input queue to two parts 5 15 25 35
did not increase production. Consequently, there would be ROP at Fulfillment Center for
Parts from Supplier3
no need to allocate additional floor space beyond one part.

7.1 Reorder Quantity (ROQ) for Parts from Supplier3
The results of the baseline run indicated that the inventory at
the end of the simulation at the Fulfillment Center for Part3
was zero. As a result of increasing the Kanban size, a new
baseline was established with a Kanban = 1. All subsequent
simulation runs were with Kanban = 1.
Figure 8 is a plot of production as a function of the reorder
quantity of parts from Supplier 3. Increasing the reorder
quantity from 100 to 130 did not increase production. It
appears that the limiting model constraint is the Kanban size
at the assembly line.
Figure 9. Production versus ROP at Fulfillment Center for
Parts from Supplier3
7.3 ROQs for Parts from Suppliers
Figure 10 is a plot of production as a function of the reorder
quantities of parts at each supplier. For the new baseline the
reorder quantity from each supplier was 100. This quantity
was reduced to 90, 70 and 60. Production was 235 for
reorder quantities of 100 and decreased to 220 when the
ROQs for parts from the suppliers were 60.
Theoretical production 240
240

Theoretical production 240

Production

240
Production

220

220

200
100 90 70 60
200 ROQs for parts from each supplier
100 110 120 130
ROQ for parts from Supplier3
Figure 10. Production versus ROQ’s for parts from each
supplier
Figure 8. Production versus ROQ from Supplier3
7.4 Delivery Time from Supplier3
Figure 11 is a plot of production as a function of the time
for an order to be delivered from Supplier3 to the
Fulfillment Center. As the delivery time increased beyond
180 minutes the production dropped. Reducing the delivery
time to 150 minutes did not increase production that was
close to the theoretical.
Theoretical production 240
240
Production
220
200
150 180 210 240
Time to deliver order from Supplier3
Figure 11. Production versus Delivery Time from
Supplier3
8. CONCLUSIONS
In summary, the following conclusions are made:
 The reduction of all inventory is not feasible in situations
with high levels of variability. Inventory between
operations should be optimized from the systems
standpoint.
 Production is sensitive to the Kanban size between
stations. A Kanban size of one appears to be adequate as
long as customer demand is met. A Kanban size of zero
decreased production while a Kanban size of two or more
did not significantly increase production.
 Line balancing to Takt time is critical to meet customer
demand. Ideally all stations should have the same cycle
times. Station variability will impact production.
 As anticipated, location of fulfillment centers, along with
ROP and ROQ impact production.
The motivation for this project was based in part by an
interest in developing a set of simplified models of
manufacturing processes that could be used in teaching and
that could be accessed remotely via the Internet.
Acknowledgements
This project was funded in part by U.S. Department of
Transportation, Office of the Secretary, Grant No. DTOS59-
05-G-0021 and the Fund for the Improvement of
Postsecondary Education, U.S. Department of Education
#P116J040009 and the European Commission DG XII
Education and Culture under the EC reference number
04D032408EUJ12987.
References
Disney, S.M. and D.R. Towill, 2003, “The Effect of Vendor
Managed Inventory (VMI) Dynamics on the Bullwhip
Effect in Supply Chains.” International Journal of
Production Economics, 85, 199-215.
Greif, M. 1991. The Visual Factory. Productivity Press,
Cambridge, MA.
Imai, M. 1986. Kaizen: The Key to Japanese Competitive
Success. Random House, New York.
Nakajima, S. 1988. Introduction to Total Productive
Maintenance. Productivity Press, Portland, OR.
National Institute for Standards and Technology. 1998.
Principles of Lean Manufacturing with Live Simulation
Users Manual. NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership,
Gaithersburg, MD.
Ohno, T. 1988. Toyota Production System. Productivity
Press, Portland, OR.
ProcessModel. 1999. Users Manual, ProcessModel Corp.,
Provo, UT.
Rother, M., and J. Shook. 1999. Learning to See. The Lean
Enterprise Institute, Brookline MA.
Shingo, S., 1983: Single Minute Exchange of Dies,
Productivity Press, Cambridge, MA.
Starling, S., G. A. Harris and B.J. Schroer. 2006. “Vendor
Managed Inventory Simulation Model for Just-In-Time
Manufacturing.” Proceedings of the 2006 Huntsville
Simulation Conference, (Huntsville, AL, October 18-19).
Biography
Bernard Schroer is Principal Research Engineer at the
University of Alabama in Huntsville. He is a Fellow of
Institute of Industrial Engineering, a Fellow of the Society
of Manufacturing Engineering and a member of SCS. His
research focuses on simulation and lean system
 implementation. He has a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering
from Oklahoma State University and is a registered
Professional Engineer.
Gregory Harris is Director of the Alabama Technology
Network Center and Deputy Director of the Office for
Economic Development at UAH. He has over twenty years
of experience as an industrial engineer, quality engineer,
operations manager and plant manager. Harris is a certified
NIST Lean Manufacturing Trainer. Harris has a Ph.D. in
Industrial and Systems Engineering from UAH. Dr. Harris
is a registered Professional Engineer.
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Dietmar Moeller is Professor of Computer Science and
Computer Engineering at the Mathematics, Computer
Science and Science Faculty of the University of Hamburg,
Germany. His is Chair of Computer Engineering and EU
Lead of the EU DG XII-U.S. FIPSE granted USE-eNET
project. His current research interests include simulation
methodology, virtual and augmented reality, embedded
systems, mobile autonomous systems and robots, e-learning
and e-work, and transportation and logistics.