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Going lean, assisted by digital simulation
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29/04/2005
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Key benefits
Saved many thousands of pounds on invalid factory improvement
Proved wrong assumptions
Demonstrated optimal factory solutions
Now extending to other factory problems
Simulation software is not just for the big boys. SMEs are saving tens of thousands of pounds and getting production improvements that make your eyes pop
Baxi Potterton, which manufactures central heating and hot water products, has proven that simulating processes on the factory floor can be a very low cost, fast and effective means of finding out what’s going to work and what isn’t. More than that, it’s demonstrated that modern systems can quickly confirm optimal solutions – stopping the reliance on assumptions and guesstimates.
The company needed to increase production to meet growing demand. But at its boiler assembly plant, many different types and styles of boiler are manufactured, and using different processes and plant – some with vertical and some on horizontal conveyors, some powered and some free-flowing. It’s a complex production environment. Further, safety requirements add to the complexity by, for example, requiring a full functional test on a combi boiler.
“It might take nine minutes to build a boiler, but the test is longer than that,” explains Paul Bilbie, manufacturing engineering manager. The solution to increasing production capacity was going to be the introduction of a new conveyor at a cost of £100,000, providing for a total of three production lines. However, installation and management wasn’t going to be straightforward as the production environment would then involve three lines, nine test rigs and three packing areas.
“I wasn’t comfortable with the suggested solution, so I called in the help of Delmia to spend some time simulating the facility, so we could understand where the problems were before we parted with £100,000,” says Bilbie. “By modelling, we could see where we had bottlenecks, and investigate the best solution to them. We could have used conventional means but it would have been very difficult to see all the workstations – there are nine per track – as well as the test rigs and packing areas, and then see how everything was going to work at a given speed.”
What modelling showed very early on was that even with the introduction of the new conveyor, two of the production lines would have been starved of carriers and would quickly have come to a halt. “That was a massively important finding for us,” says Bilbie.
“If we hadn’t carried out the simulation, but just put the design into the conveyor company, we’d have had a loss of production of 19%. We had thought there was a problem around that area, but with two existing lines on the ground, we couldn’t physically see where it was coming from.”
The success of this particular project has demonstrated the value of simulation within the Baxi Group. “If we can achieve a 19% increase in production by using simulation on our universal line, there are surely benefits to be had modelling other lines too – paint plants as well,” says Bilbie.
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Author
Brian
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