Simulation for Decision Support in Process Reengineering in the Automotive Industry

Abstract

With globalization and the high competitiveness faced in a business environment, adopting technological solutions to satisfactory respond to an increasingly demanding customer is the watchword for organizations. With technological advances and an increasingly volatile society, it is mandatory for industries to ensure agile production processes capable of responding quickly and assertively to consumer expectations. Industry 4.0 with its technological pillars comes up to boost company to have more flexible and agile processes. This work results of a project developed in an automotive factory that will be producing a new mechanical part. The definition of the best layout of the production line was carried in an instable environment characterized by budget limitations, security and space restrictions that forced the company to study and discuss four possible layouts to define the future line. The goal was to ensure that the line was able to produce 3625 parts/week with an Operational Income of 87%. Moreover, it was also important to consider the cost of implementing a new line in the company. With this study it is proven that in an automotive industry where flexibility is required in an unpredictable environment during a decision-making process, analyzing the impact and possible consequences of every change in a layout definition phase is a great asset, where alteration like adding a conveyor, Automated Guided Vehicle or Robots can be made easy and quickly, and important conclusions can be taken from this analyze with less effort. Finally, 2 criteria were created to examine every variant and a decision was made.