A Comparison of Current and Alternative Production Characteristics of a Flow Line: Case Study in a Yarn Producer’s Packaging Unit

Year 2019, Volume: 7 Issue: 1, 15 - 21, 31.03.2019

Utku Köker , Halil İbrahim Koruca , Samia Chehbi - Gamoura

Abstract

Production
lines are consecutively placed machines designed to obtain short cycle times
with high speeds. This type of flow line is preferred when the demand pattern
occurs in high volumes from the same product in short production periods.  The structure of production systems is
directly related to the quantity and variety of the demand.  If the overall demand is made up of an
identical product in high amounts in a short period of time, flow lines are
designed to answer this need in a manner of consecutive linear machines,
capable of performing one or more tasks per machine.  Production with low cost and right quantity
conditions is also an obligation under timely constraints. A packaging station
of a five machine Bernoulli line is modelled in this paper. Two alternative
packaging materials are put into consideration against a readily used material
and those 3 packaging films are compared according to the performance
characteristics. A C# programme is coded to obtain the statistical performance
characteristics of an aggregation method applied to the “Bernoulli flow line”
to make a decision on which material is to be selected. Production rates,
blockages, starvations as well as work in process stocks are the performance
values calculated by the C# code developed, according to an aggregation method.
One of the two competing alternatives is selected after analyzing the outcomes
of the software.

Keywords

Automatic production systems, inventory management, maintenance and repair times

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