SIMULATION MODELING ASSESSMENT OF FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING

SYSTEM AND PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT OF CORK PRODUCTION (CASE

OF ETHIOPIAN CAN & CORK

Kassu Jilcha1, , Eshetie Birhan2, 3Kokobe Beyene

1,2,3
Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa Institute of Technology, School of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering,
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
jkassu@gmail.com, starebey2010@gmail.com, eshetie_ethio@yahoo.com

Abstract
The aim of this paper is to describe the application of simulation modeling to estimate and improve assessment of
flexible manufacturing system and performance improvement of cork production (case of Ethiopian can & cork.
After model verification and validation, statistical analyses were performed on different scenarios. Its try to
determine the product considered under this study emphasize and distinguishing characteristics developed
simulation model identify various production settings and discuss applicability of arena simulation as a management
decision support tool .in order to consider those constraints in this paper flow shop model simulation was developed
using arena software. Model the cork manufacturing flow shop in arena simulation software and fined Cork flow
time (by type), Cork delays at operation location, Utilization of resource and finally suggest an improvement.

Keywords: Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS), Performance improvement, Simulation Modeling, Bottle Neck
model, ARENA simulation

1. Introduction
Global competition in the manufacturing industry with aims to increase diversity of products, reduce product
delivery time and customer satisfaction, improve quality and reduce production costs, is increasingly growing. Faced
with these multiple issues, new technologies that support automation and flexibility have been made.
So the flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is a good combination between variety and productivity. In this system,
the main focus is on flexibility rather than the system efficiencies.
Competitive FMS is expected to be flexible enough to respond to small batches of customer demand and due to the
fact that the construction of any new production line is a large investment so the current production line is
reconfigured to keep up the optimal design of FMS is a critical issue and it is a complex problem. There are various
modeling techniques for
FMS; the most common one are based on mathematical programming. In this paper using mathematical calculation
i.e. bottleneck technique is used to describe a point of congestion in any system from computer networks to a factory
assembly line. In such a system, there is always some process, task, machine, etc. that is the limiting factor
preventing a greater throughput and thus determines the capacity of the entire system. Knowing the bottleneck
allows increasing the flow by improving just one process in the system rather than all its remaining parts.
Simulation technology holds tremendous promise for reducing costs, improving quality, and shortening the time-to-
market for manufactured goods. Unfortunately, this technology still remains largely underutilized by industry today
with the increased frequency of new product design.
The production of corks in Ethiopian can and crown cork manufacturing s.co is done by Flexible manufacturing
system with little involvement of humans. Currently they are losing the market share and also experienced work
forces leaving the company to a competitor. These have great impact for the company to compete with the market.
Hence assessing the nature of flexibility and checking its performance is found mandatory to help the company stay
in track.
So the objective of this paper is to assess the nature of flexibility of Ethiopian can and cork manufacturing s.co,
specifically the production line of crown cork, based on the theoretical FMS illustrations. Besides mathematical
model will be incorporated so as to check the performance of the existing FMS and proposes a new system which
will lead the company to its increased utilization & performance level.

2. Materials and methods

The first thing to do is identify the processes that need improvement. This can be done using a number of methods
such as surveys, focus groups or simply asking responsible person /expert. The most effort is used for activity
durations, because activities build major part of our model and play important role in accuracy of the model.
Primary methodology, physical observation of the process the process, interviewing the responsible personnel, the
literatures reviewed –Searching web site and journals. Manipulating recorded data.
After collecting all the necessary data, it is organized and analyzed using appropriate mathematical model & tools to
find important parameters. Then the findings are interpreted more precisely.

Literature survey

“A model is a simplified representation of a system at some particular point in time or space intended to promote
understanding of the real system.”(Bellinger, 2004). It is not possible to create a model that perfectly depicts
every aspect of reality, though we can get close enough to learn from it. (Meyer, 2008). There are specific
steps that should be followed when conducting a simulation in order to ensure that the outcome achieved
correlates with the type of problem that the experimenter desired to solve. These include identification of the
problem, statement of the objectives, model formulation, identification and preparation of the data, verification
and validation of the model, experimentation and interpretation of the results, and finally conclusion and
implementation.
Flexible Manufacturing System, Utilization, Production Rate, Performance Measures Kelton et al. (W.DavidKelton)
presented the concepts of simulation using ARENA to help the modeler reaching the ability to carry out
effective simulation modeling. ARENA is based on SIMAN modeling language, and has an object-oriented
design to any application area. Many papers have used ARENA software to study production lines and
identify the Bottlenecks and resolve it in the design phase or in a standing line.
In this literature only deterministic model will be discussed as it is going to be applied on the assessment of
performance in the case company.
Bottle Neck model
The focus will be upon the deterministic model known as the bottleneck model. The bottleneck model is simple and
intuitive in approach, and can be used to determine a number of FMS starting parameters (later to be adjusted when
the FMS is running). The term bottleneck refers to the fact that the output of the production system has an upper
limit, given that the product mix flowing through the FMS is fixed.
In the bottleneck model the following terminology and symbols are relevant. Part mix, or the mix of the various
parts or product styles produced by the FMS, is defined as:

Where Pjis the fraction of the total system output that is of style j; and
P is the total number of different part styles made in the FMS.
The number of workstations in the system is defined by n, and in the bottleneck model each workstation may have
more than one server (two or more machines capable of performing the same operation). Let S i be the number of
servers at workstation I, where I= 1,2, …, n.
In bottleneck modeling, process routing defines the sequence of operations, the workstations where operations are
performed, and associated process times. We can let tijk be the processing time (the total time that a production unit
occupies a given workstation server, not counting waiting time); where i is the station, j is the part/product style, and
k refers to the sequence of operations in the process routing.
For work handling, the material handling system is considered as a special-case workstation in the bottleneck model.
It is designated as n + 1, with the number of carriers in the system being equated to the number of servers in a
workstation. Thus sn+1 can become the number of carriers in the FMS handling system. For transport, we can let tn+1
be the mean transport time required to move a part from one workstation to the next station in process routing;
where t is transport time.
Finally, operation frequency is defined as the expected number of times a given operation in the process routing is
performed for each work unit. We can let fijk be the operation frequency for operation k in process plan j, at station I,
and where f is represents operation frequency.
Using these terms we can represent FMS operational parameters in the context of the bottleneck model.
Average workload is calculated as:

The work handling system is a special case and is treated as an extra station. The average number of transports is:

Thus, the workload of the handling system is:

Other important performance measures used in the bottleneck model can also be calculated. The workload per server
is given as:

If we let WL* and s* be the workload and number of servers, respectively, for the bottleneck station, then the
maximum production rate (Rp*) of all parts of the FMS can be determined as the ratio of these two entities; that is:

The value of Rp* includes parts of all styles produced in the system. Individual part production rates are obtained by
Rp* by the respective part mix ratios; that is:

Utilization at each workstation is:

Based on this, average station utilization is:

Overall FMS utilization is calculated as:

Finally, the number of busy servers at each station is given as:

where B siis the number of busy servers on average at station i.

ARENA®
The Arena modeling system from Systems Modeling Corporation is a flexible and powerful tool that allows analysts
to create animated simulation models that accurately represent virtually any system. First released in 1993, Arena
employs an object – oriented design for entirely graphical model development. Simulation analysts place graphical
objects, called modules, on a layout in order to define system components such as machines, operators, and material
handling devices.

3. Data Collection and Analysis

The paper is done by using secondary data from the company. And primary data by interviewing Managers and
shop floor workers regarding performance of the existing
A flow shop consists of
• Arrival Dock
• Shop Exit and main processes
Table 1 existed process steps in cork production
Part Mix
Mirnda Pepsi Zenith
S/ Number of 0.6 0.3 0.1
No Description Station Servers Processing time /min
1 Trimming 1 1 15 15 15
2 Measurement 2 1 7 7 7
3 Coating 3 1 20 20 20
4 Drying 4 1 32 20 35
5 Printing 5 1 45 25 33
7 Shine Coating 6 1 15 15 15
8 Cutting & crowning 7 2 12 12 12
9 Seal fix 8 1 14 14 14
10 Cooling 9 1 5 5 5
11 Inspecting 10 2 3 3 3
12 Counting 11 2 10 10 10
Distance between flow shop locations Layout

Below is the existing crown cork manufacturing layout.

9 6 1
2
7 5 4 3

9 Fig 4; Existing layout

6
Model assumption
The simulation is conducted on industrial case problem carried out Ethiopian cork and can manufacturing S.co. is
one of the old ad keen can and cork manufacturing firm over the years in Ethiopia. The flow shop works for 24
hours a day in shifts at 8 hours each.
Up to recent times until the introduction of new can and cork factories in the market ECCSco use to be the only
producer of cans and corks. The company produces cans of different size, crown cork for different customers.
Currently the production of can is limited to of size 2 lt, 4lt.Cork production Jobs arrive in batches of 10 units. Their
inter-arrival times are uniformly distributed between 400 and 600 minutes. Of arriving batches, 50% are C1, 30%
are C2, and 20% are C3.Each CORK type has the same operation sequence. Corks are transported by two trucks
running at a constant speed of 100 feet/minute. Each truck can carry only one type of cork at a time .The case
company deliver Crown cork for different customers, Moha soft drinks processing ,Brewery etc.
A flow shop producing 3 types of cork; Part matrix
• Mirinda cork =c1
• Pepsi Cork =c2
• Zenith Cork=c3
The freed transporter stays at the destination station until requested by another station. Transporter (Truck) speed is
same for both loaded and empty.

The Transport starts from Arrival Dock. When a job is complete at a location, the cork is placed into an output
buffer. A transport request is made for a truck, and the cork waits for the truck to arrive. Among the two trucks, the
preference will be for the one which is closest to the requested location. The transported job is placed in the input
buffer of next station. After all operations, the finished gear departs from the job shop via the shop exit.

Model the cork manufacturing job shop in arena simulation software and fined

• Cork flow time (by type)

• Cork delays at operation location
• Utilization of resource
• Suggest an improvement

Conclusion &Recommendations
Conclusion
Based on the result of performance analysis of the existing manufacturing system of corks, clearly it indicates that
the printing station is the bottle neck. There might be a number of reasons for this station to be the bottle neck but
the major reason is that the machine is too old with old technologies. But the crown press and the seal machines are
of to be latest. This creates the gap in the process.
The economic analysis is not done due to the fact that the company is not willing to give financial documents. But
the demand tells that either replacement or upgrading of the equipment is mandatory. Also competitors are now
coming to the market.
 Recommendation
The overall work load lies on the printing machine. In order the company to use the system efficiently and to
respond to the customers in due time there will be two options which are dependent economic analysis.
 Upgrade the existing offset printing machine so that to utilize it to the maximum
 Replace the offset printing machine which has incorporated new technology
The research recommended the following improvement solution for a company.
The underutilized equipment’s in the analysis like the trimming machine, coating machine, and measuring
equipment may be used for other production lines like for the can manufacturing line. Instead of making they
dedicated to the cork system only.
The material handling system lacks continuity, it means it is not fully automated. Hence it will be good if complete
automation of the handing system is considered The plastic used for seal is a liquid supplied to the fixer machine by
pump, but instead of complicating the system it is better for them to see other recent developments which
competitors and the world is using it. It has so many advantages over the system that they use.
The administrative system is bureaucratic to students to do such researches. It will be on their advantage if they
correct the attitude & allow students to do such staffs.

References

1. Naylor, T. H., J. L. Balintfy, D. S. Burdick,and K. Chu. 1966. Computer Simulation Techniques, John Wiley
2. Nelson, B. L. 1995. Stochastic Modeling: Analysis andSimulation,
3. McGraw-Hill.Simulation with arena second edition W.DavidKelton
4. Fundamental of Modern manufacturing , MikellP.Groover 3rd Edition
5. Performance Improvement of Flexible
6. Manufacturing System: A Case StudyFlexible Manufacturing System , H.K.Shivanand.M.MBenal, V.Koti, Volume:
02, Number: 06, April-2013
7. The Design of Manufacturing systems, Volume V, Cornelius Leondes
8. Modeling Handbook, A practical approach, Chiristopher A. Chung