Optimization of operations in a steel wire manufacturing company

The project was conducted in a high quality steel wire manufacturing company with the production capacity of over 120,000 tones/annum. The wire drawn from the high speed wire drawing (KOCH) machine is fed as the raw material for BEKEART (zinc coating galvanization) furnace. The problem faced by the company is the variability in the amount of input to the furnace, which results from the breakdowns occurring on the KOCH machine resulting in low production. Apart from its speed, KOCH machines have other advantages due to their automation by which they can be set as per the requirements and different parameters of the company. It can be concluded that any downtime in the process occurring at the KOCH machine adversely affects the productivity of the BEKEART furnace, as a result of which the total production on this line suffers and hence the profits of the company. A simulation study was done with the objective of increasing the throughput and ensuring smooth product flow through the system by finding the optimum arrival batch size.