Simulation and analysis of plant layout in chip conveyor manufacturing industry

Abstract

Most layouts are redesigned to eliminate the waste due to transport. The current shop floor layout of chip conveyor manufacturing was analyzed and found that the time required to manufacture a conveyor was more and there was no proper space for assembling the conveyor and storing it. The industry could manufacture only one conveyor at a time and were not able to fulfill customer demand on time. To overcome this the management had built new plant with larger area and hence decided to shift there. The main objective of the study is to design a plant layout for the new plant. The problems faced in the old layout were studied thoroughly in order to identify the bottleneck areas. A new plant layout was designed for the new area with increased area of the sections and added machines. The facilities were relocated so as to minimize the waste due to transportation of material. Different alternatives were developed and analyzed using simulation software Arena version 10.0. The best alternative among others is selected and suggested for implementation. On comparing the existing layout with the proposed layout following improvements were made. The percentage of total cycle time reduction for manufacturing a chip conveyor is 38.48%. Total reduction in travel distance was 62.25% and the total transfer time reduction was 53.34%.