A STUDY ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF A LOCAL BOTTLE MANUFACTURING OPERATION: DEPLOYMENT OF LEAN PRINCIPLES AND DISCRETE EVENT SIMULATION

Abstract

Local manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SME) have faced continuous challenges in competing with manufacturing firms of scale on the global market. Factors such as the presence of a traditional organisational structure and inefficient utilisation of resources have contributed to the challenges faced by local SMEs in keeping up with regional and international competitors within the manufacturing sector. To investigate the aforementioned challenges, a case study was conducted on a local bottle manufacturing SME which sought to improve their system performance across their Plastic Injection Melding (PIM) operation. Using strategies in the form of lean manufacturing as well as ARENA® simulation software, the challenges identified within their operation were observed and mitigated using key performance indicators. Lean strategies such as Heijunka, Kanban and Six Sigma were utilised as possible methods of reducing waste within the existing simulation model. When comparing the key performance indicators from the simulation, findings highlighted improvements in the Work in Process (WIP) and Waiting Time (WT) by 84.78% and 98.03% for the entire operation. A cost-benefit analysis was carried out to identify the most financially feasible strategy in purchasing the resources that were required for the strategy’s integration into the actual system.