Improvements in Production Line Using ProModel© Simulation Software: A Case Study of Beer Beverage Company in India

In the present competitive market scenarios, the beverage industries are working hard to increase the production volume without compromising the quality of products. There are many ways to improve the effectiveness and performance of the production lines, such as minimizing the transportation time between the locations, utilizing the buffer storages, removing and replacing manually operated and semi-automatic machines, use of group technology and many more methods. In the present study, a beer production company located in Sonipat (Haryana) India is a Small-to-Medium Enterprise (SME) striving to improve its production line layout. Thus, the exiting layout of the production line has been simulated using ProModel© 7.5 simulation software and two alternative production line layouts have been suggested with improved work-in-progress, higher production volume and less transportation time. In one alternative layout, the buffer storage and rearrangement of machines for shortening the travel distance have been introduced and in another alternative layout, the automatic guided vehicle has been replaced with the conveyor as well as two machines namely filling machine and capping machine have been replaced by a machine called Filling and Capping machine in order to perform both operation at the same time. Various conclusions have been drawn and the cost analysis has been presented to justify the suggested changes.