The use of simulation for process improvement in metal industry - case HT-Lasertekniikka

Companies in the metal industry want to find solutions for increasing the quality of service and productivity of the operation, but it is not an easy task to do, especially if the company is large (has several different production units) and in addition uses many different metal types as material. This paper examines the centralization of special metal production into a single unit instead of several units. The research method is simulation and the main concentration is on fording out the effects and the possible benefits of the centralization scenario. Two different simulation models are constructed for the study. The results of the simulation runs showed that the centralization would increase the utilization of a selected unit only 3,12 % which means that it could be easily carried out. The results also indicated that the centralization scheme could improve the operation significantly (elimination of operational and logistics phases).