Simulation improves end-of-line sortation and material handling pickup scheduling at appliance manufacturer

The most venerable and the most highly varied general application area in which simulation has frequently and repeatedly proved its economic value is the manufacturing sector of the economy. Manufacturing applications of simulation have included attention to complex issues of equipment and/or worker downtime, problems of facility layout, work and line balancing, bottleneck analysis, and material handling. Furthermore, simulation has proved itself capable of addressing productivity and efficiency improvement tasks in which these complexities overlap and interact. Historically, much of the success simulation has enjoyed in other economic sectors (e.g., service, transportation, and health care) has stemmed in large measure from the reputation it earned in the manufacturing sector. The manufacturing application described in this paper proved the cost-effective feasibility of designing sortation operations downstream of an assembly line, and scheduling SKU pickups there, with no risk of blockage of that line.