Simulation metamodeling approach to complex design of garment assembly lines

The today’s competitive advantage of ready-made garment industry depends on the ability to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of resource utilization. Ready-made garment industry has long historically adopted fewer technological and process advancement as compared to automotive, electronics and semiconductor industries. Simulation modeling of garment assembly line has attracted a number of researchers as one way for insightful analysis of the system behaviour and improving its performance. However, most of simulation studies have considered ill-defined experimental design which cannot fully explore the assembly line design alternatives and does not uncover the interaction effects of the input variables. Simulation metamodeling is an approach to assembly line design which has recently been of interest to researchers. However, its application in garment assembly line design has never been well explored. In this paper, simulation metamodeling of trouser assembly line with 72 operations was demonstrated. The linear regression metamodel technique with resolution-V design was used. The effects of five factors: bundle size, job release policy, task assignment pattern, machine number and helper number on throughput of the trouser assembly line were studied. An increase of the production throughput by 28.63% was achieved for the best factors’ setting of the metamodel.