This article examines the problem of production line delays in a textile small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) that produces polyester fibre from recycled bottles, based on orders. Factors that have resulted in production line delays include prolonged unscheduled maintenance time, and preparations and adjustments prior to operating the equipment. To address the problem, a model was developed applying lean manufacturing tools through change management, with the aim of increasing equipment availability and useful life. To validate the model, a pilot was developed to determine how the increase in equipment availability helps reduce delays in the production line, which eventually improves completion of customer orders.

No / This paper proposes an innovative factory planning methodology to achieve the objectives that were defined by Flexitallic for the future expansion of the Thermiculite production line. The concepts under investigation extend to the analysis of flow benefits and restrictions considering product features and demands addressed in a proposed Batch/Flow Comparative Matrix. Furthermore, this paper introduces the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) concept to support the manufacturing line design using a mechanism of incorporating commercial awareness in all stages of the product deployment. The original QFD ensures process planning by bringing parts deployment into parts characteristics through the House of Quality. This study renews the original QFD by developing the Strategic Alignment of Quality Function Deployment (SAQFD) to achieve proactive management of Houses III and House IV. The case study demonstrates the utilization and applicability of the proposed methodologies, and demonstrates their importance during the design of a high volume production line.

Swedish Match har ställt frågan vilka potentiella problem de har i en specifik del av sitt produktionsflöde. Målet med denna studie är att skapa ett underlag för fortsatt förbättringsarbete med att minska den icke värdeskapande tiden på produktionslina A på Swedish Match fabrik i Kungälv, samt att ta fram rekommendationer inför framtida produktion. Arbetet består av en produktionsanalys av transportbandet, nulägesanalys av produktionslinan samt olika problem som kan uppstå kring det avgränsade området. Metoder som huvudsakligen använts för att hämta information är observationer, simulering, litteratur och produktionsmätningar. Nuläget har visualiserats med hjälp av simulering i 3D med programmet ”Tecnomatix Plant Simulation”, detta för att på ett enklare sätt förstå den nuvarande processen i flödet.   Produktionsanalysen innehåller data som analyserats utifrån produktionsmätningar samt information som delgivits från företaget angående hur deras nyckeltal Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) och produktionsnivå ser ut i dag. Från analysen har det främst noterats att de problem som uppstår inom det avgränsade området visat sig vara symptom som är en del av ett mer grundläggande problem. Därefter har slutsatser dragits om att Swedish Match bör analysera övriga delar på den studerade produktionslina A.   Den huvudsakliga rekommendationen till Swedish Match är att fokusera på helheten snarare än på delflöden, detta för att uppnå en högre produktivitet genom hela flödet. Slutligen rekommenderas Swedish Match att studera övriga delar i produktion för att på så sätt skapa möjligheter till förbättringsåtgärder som är långvarigt hållbara och inte enbart lösningar för specifika delflöden. Flera av de rekommendationer som påvisats är enkla att genomföra och skulle därmed kunna minska en del av den icke värdeskapande tiden som i nuläget finns på produktionslina A. / Swedish Match has questioned what kind of potential problems they have in a specific part of their production flow. The aim of this study is to create a solid ground for continuous improvements for reducing the non value-adding time on the production line A at Swedish Match manufacturing plant in Kungälv. Further, recommendations for future production will be given. The work consists of a production analysis of the conveyer belt system, an analysis of the present situation of the production line and other various problems that can occur in the defined area. Methods that primarily have been used to gather information are observations, simulations, relevant literature and production measurements. The present situation has been visualized through a 3D simulation programme called “Tecnomatix Plant Simulation”, in order to more easily understand the current process flow.   The production analysis contains of data, which have been analysed from production measurements and information that the company has provided in order to analyse their Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and production level. The analysis shows that the problems occuring in the defined area turned out to be symptoms, of a more fundamental problem. Subsequently, conclusions have been drawn that Swedish Match should analyse the other parts of the studied production line A.  The main recommendation to Swedish Match is to focus on the entire rather than the partial flow, in order to improve the productivity. Finally, Swedish Match is recommended to study other parts of the production system in order to create opportunities for long-term improvement measures, and not just solutions for a specific partial flow. Many of the recommendations are easy to implement and would thus reduce parts of the non value-adding time, on production line A.

Companies, across the globe are concerned with risks that impair their ability to produce quality products at a low cost and deliver them to customers on time. Risk assessment, comprising of both external and internal elements, prepares companies to identify and manage the risks affecting them. Although both external/supply chain and internal/production line risk assessments are necessary, internal risk assessment is often ignored. Internal risk assessment helps companies recognize vulnerable sections of production operations and provide opportunities for risk mitigation. In this research, a novel production line risk assessment methodology is proposed. Traditional simulation techniques fail to capture the complex relationship amongst risk events and the dynamic interaction between risks affecting a production line. Bayesian- integrated System Dynamics modelling can help resolve this limitation. Bayesian Belief Networks (BBN) effectively capture risk relationships and their likelihoods. Integrating BBN with System Dynamics (SD) for modelling production lines help capture the impact of risk events on a production line as well as the dynamic interaction between those risks and production line variables. The proposed methodology is applied to an industrial case study for validation and to discern research and practical implications.

This Thesis project is a part of the all-round automation of production of concentrating solar PV/T systems Absolicon X10. ABSOLICON Solar Concentrator AB has been invented and started production of the prospective solar concentrated system Absolicon X10. The aims of this Thesis project are designing, assembling, calibrating and putting in operation the automatic measurement system intended to evaluate the shape of concentrating parabolic reflectors.On the basis of the requirements of the company administration and needs of real production process the operation conditions for the Laser testing rig were formulated. The basic concept to use laser radiation was defined.At the first step, the complex design of the whole system was made and division on the parts was defined. After the preliminary conducted simulations the function and operation conditions of the all parts were formulated.At the next steps, the detailed design of all the parts was conducted. Most components were ordered from respective companies. Some of the mechanical components were made in the workshop of the company. All parts of the Laser-testing rig were assembled and tested. Software part, which controls the Laser-testing rig work, was created on the LabVIEW basis. To tune and test software part the special simulator was designed and assembled.When all parts were assembled in the complete system, the Laser-testing rig was tested, calibrated and tuned.In the workshop of Absolicon AB, the trial measurements were conducted and Laser-testing rig was installed in the production line at the plant in Soleftea.

This study deals with chocolate production line scheduling. The particular production line allows producing multiple items at the same time. Another distinguishing property affecting the planning methodology is that an item can have different production capacities when produced in different product combinations which are called production patterns in this study. Planning is done on a 12 weeks rolling horizon. There are 21 products and 103 production patterns covering all the production possibilities. The subject of the study is to construct an algorithm that gives 12 weeks&rsquo / production values of each product and to construct the shift based scheduling of the first week of the planning horizon. The first part is Master Production Scheduling (MPS) and the objective is minimizing the shortage and overage costs. A mathematical modeling approach is used to solve the MPS problem. The second part is the scheduling part which aims to arrange the production patterns obtained from the MPS module within the shifts for the first week of the planning horizon considering the setup times. The MPS module is a large integer programming model. The challenge is finding a reasonable lower bound whenever possible. If it is not possible, finding a reasonable upper bound and seeking solutions better than that is the main approach. The scheduling part, after solving MPS, becomes a TSP and the setup times are sequence independent. In this part, the challenge is solving TSP with an appropriate objective function.

Magistrinis darbas skirtas modernizuoti nemetalinių medžiagų gaminių gamybos liniją. Šiai užduočiai buvo pasirinkta antklodžių gamybos linija. Pagrindinis tikslas – suprojektuoti naujus įrengimus, kurie palengvintų žmogaus darbą, suteiktų ergonomiškesnes darbo sąlygas ir padidintų gaminamų gaminių skaičių bei kokybę. Darbe sprendžiami keli pagrindiniai uždaviniai: kaip padidinti linijos našumą; kaip sudaryti darbuotojams geresnes darbo sąlygas ir palengvinti žmogaus atliekamą darbą.Darbe išanalizuota senosios antklodžių gamybos linijos ir įrenginių struktūra, taip pat atlikta analogiškų įrenginių apžvalga, jų galimybės bei kainos. Pasitelkus šiuolaikines technologijas buvo suprojektuoti nauji įrenginiai ir aprašyti jų konstravimo ir veikimo ypatumai. / This final master thesis is intended for modernizing the production line of nonmetal materials. Quilt production line was selected. The main objective of the work – to project new equipment that facilitates human work, ensures more ergonomic working conditions and enhances the number and the quality of produced goods. The main tasks of the work: how to enlarge the productivity of the line and how to create better working environment and facilitate human performing works. In this final thesis we have analyzed the structure of the old equipment for producing quilts. The survey of analogue equipment was performed, and their potential and prices were evaluated and compared. With the help of modern technologies new equipment was constructed and its constructing and working singularities were analyzed.

This project is a continuous research of a topic well-known in the literature, namely, the performance study of unbalanced unpaced production system. In the literature, there were many studies that investigated the statistical outputs of an unbalanced production line using simulation. This project focuses on researching the outputs like average buffer level and idle time that are rarely studied in previous research by using optimization tools from discrete event simulation software FACTS.The models used in the article (Shaaban & McNamara, 2009) have been used as a guideline during the development of the simulation models for this project. Two simulation models were created, each using different discrete event simulation software, namely FACTS analyzer and Plant simulation. Those simulation models fulfills its role in verification & validation stage, with their statistical outputs compared to each other and with Shaaban and McNamara’s results. After verification & validation comes optimization of those simulation models, by using optimization tools from FACTS.The research area expanded during the optimization phase. Originally Shaaban et.al analyzed unbalanced production line with one fixed value of coefficient of variation. In order to expand the view on the properties of an unbalanced production line, three more coefficient variation were added with total of four in this project. As a result, 12 optimization results were created at the end of this project. Each optimization has 30 000 iterations to ensure its convergence.The first step of analysis is done by locating all Pareto-optimal solutions with optimization tools in FACTS. The raw data of all solutions are later transferred and converted into EXCEL files. Using scatter graph and putting all outputs against each other in EXCEL, it creates visual graph that can be used to analyze and to investigate interesting behavior in an unbalanced production line.The analysis on the optimization results showed several interesting behaviors from production line with different settings. One being that if a production line possess worse coefficient of variation than its competition. By raising the inter-stage buffer level of the production line with inferior coefficient of variation, it can achieve the same level, if not greater outputs than its competitor who possess better coefficient of variation. The other interesting behavior are optimization results with highest outputs in regard of either idle time or average buffer level, with deep analyzation using optimization tools from FACTS. Certain operation time pattern and inter-stage buffer pattern could be observed from those results.

The present work had as objective evaluate results from Lean Manufacturing implementation, that in General Motors is called Global Manufacturing System, at S-10 model production plant, located in the city of São José dos Campos São Paulo. Using a set of indicators integrated to the Business Plan of the Company it was evidenced the impact generated for the implementation of the Lean concepts in the production system. The assessment made considered the results from indicators before and after the implementation of Lean Manufacturing in the refereed line of production. By means of the reached results it was also proved that the implementation of Lean Manufacturing concepts in plants considered old (Brownfield) is not only possible as also can bring advantageous results for the organization that adopts them. With the automobile market each time more competitive, as much in Brazil as in the world, the necessity of having product and competitive price come stimulating several assembly plants to invest in this system. This because such system favors the improvement of quality and productivity levels with direct reflects on production costs reduction, among others benefits. The reached results had demonstrated clearly that Lean Manufacturing process implemented brought an expressive improvement at production, evidenced for the wide positive evolution of almost all indicators used, related to quality, productivity, safe and costs. Is also distinguished the high level of involvement from collaborators with the adoption of Lean Manufacturing, demonstrated by the results obtained with the indicator of verification from the human resources level of usage at implementation process. / O presente trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar resultados da implementação do Lean Manufacturing, que na General Motors se denominou Sistema Global de Manufatura, na planta de produção do modelo S-10, localizada no município de São José dos Campos São Paulo. Utilizando um conjunto de indicadores integrados ao Plano de Negócios da Empresa, evidenciou-se o impacto gerado pela implantação dos conceitos Lean no sistema de produção. A avaliação realizada considerou os resultados dos indicadores antes e após a implementação da Manufatura Enxuta na referida linha de produção. Por meio dos resultados alcançados, evidenciou-se também que a implementação dos conceitos de Manufatura Enxuta em plantas consideradas antigas (Brownfield) não somente é possível como também pode trazer resultados vantajosos para a organização que os adota. Com o mercado automobilístico cada vez mais concorrido, tanto no Brasil como no mundo, a necessidade de se ter qualidade do produto e preço competitivo vem estimulando diversas montadoras a investirem neste sistema. Isto porque tal sistema favorece a melhoria dos níveis de qualidade e produtividade, com reflexos diretos sobre a redução dos custos de produção, entre outros benefícios. Os resultados alcançados demonstraram claramente que o processo de Manufatura Enxuta implementado trouxe uma melhoria expressiva na produção, evidenciada pela evolução largamente positiva de quase todos os indicadores utilizados, relacionados à qualidade, produtividade, segurança e custos. Destaca-se também o alto grau de comprometimento dos colaboradores com a adoção da Manufatura Enxuta, demonstrado pelos resultados obtidos com o indicador de verificação do nível de utilização de recursos humanos no processo de implementação.

This thesis deals with the design and implementation of the ISA-95 standard on a newly created production line. The standard and its models are described in the theoretical part, following with the individual selected software solutions, which were used for the standard’s application. Subsequently, a description of the construction and program tools of both devices, which by physical arrangement and their connection create the production line, is provided. The next part of the thesis deals with the design and application of a batch control process. This is the basis for an ISA-95 standard implementation, which uses specific software resources for data acquisition and visualization. A functional verification of the production line and realized design was done within the last part. The conclusion presents an evaluation of production based on analyzed data from the test production.