Optimization via Computer Simulation of a Mixed Assembly Line of Wooden Furniture - A Case Study

摘要

In this article, a new model based on Taguchi design and simulation is suggested to study a mixed assembly line of wooden furniture. The experiment contains 9 independent variables, related to product’s mixes and colors, scheduling rules and Product Life Cycle (PLC) and 3 dependent variables related to Lead-time, flow time and setup time. L27Taguchi’s plan was selected as the appropriate experimental design and the Minitab software was used to carry out its analysis and to obtain its related results. The actual model required the use of many other software, such as: The Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) system, ‘SQL Server’, ‘Microsoft Report Builder’ and ‘Arena’. This study proves that product mixes, number of offered colors and the scheduling rule for the first sandblast’s workstation have a significant effect on all dependent variables. In addition, scheduling rule for the preparation’s workstation has an important effect on the Lead-time and the flow time. This model can also be a decision support for the line manager. Although PLC’s factors were considered for screening purpose, they turned out to be generally insignificant. This is explained by the similarity between collections of products. In addition, Tukey test, shows that offering sub-categories 1, 2 and 3 and applying the modified shortest processing time’s rule at the preparation’s workstation reduces significantly the mean Lead-time. Finally, it was shown that, there is no difference between offering 22 or 32 colors in term of Lead-time.