Industrial Design and Simulation of a JIT Material Handling System

A JIT Material Handling System attempts to manufacture products from start to finish by rearranging the factory floor layout away from batch production toward a product layout using flow lines. One of the most accepted JIT production methods used in this work is known as the Kanban system. Kanbans are used to operate a pull system of material control that links all supplying operations to a final assembly line. The ultimate goal of this system is the conversion of raw materials at the Juhel Oral Drug Process plant into finished products with lead time equal to processing time. The flows in the manufacturing model include: the flow of materials, the flow of information, and the flow of cost. These flows create the value streams. Components of the value stream can be value-add or waste, depending on the operating conditions. The simulation model developed in this research work is based on the single-card pull system developed at the Drug Process Plant. This model consists of three blocks (workstations) where there is a buffer located between two workstations. In this model, the material moves according to the Kanban rule. If Kanbans arrive and the material is available, the workstation starts processing the material. This research demonstrates that the design of the JIT system can significantly affect key manufacturing performance measures. JIT implementation cannot provide significant benefits if setup time and variability remain high as well as if the company is not able to optimise the production facilities by product mix. Based on the result from this work, JIT is not based upon rigid concepts. Therefore, successful implementation depends largely on the company’s ability to identify problems, creativity and efforts. The application of single-card pull system coupled with the use of the trigger point results in simpler mechanisms for operating the system.