Improving the effectiveness of the auto body shop using simulation-based optimization

Auto industry continuously looks for methods of increasing their productivity through improvements in quality, down time losses, and equipment utilization. One of the most important measures that considers the above improvements is the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). In this study, we aim to improve the throughput of a real-world auto body shop in terms of the OEE measure by improving losses caused by failure and repair stoppages. Unlike the existing literature this study considers the real-world complexities of auto body shop such as buffers. Thus, improving the throughput of the body shop using mathematical formulation or analytical methods cannot be addressed. Therefore, the related problem has been simulated and addressed through simulation-based optimization. The obtained results show a %5.2 increase in the throughput of the considered auto body shop due to the improvements in the mean time between failure and mean time to repair.