| The objective of this project was to improve productivity in a flexible manufacturing system dedicated to produce a medical device used for the collection of platelets. The system was modeled as a terminal system using computerized simulation. The impact of factors such as the number of operators, number of testing machines, buffer sizes, line speed, and system layout, were examined using statistically designed experiments. The appropriate values for these factors were determined maximizing the regression equation that represented the average units produced per shift. The best option suggested an increase in productivity of almost 20 percent, however, from the economic standpoint resulted to be infeasible due to the high investment required. The alternative recommended resulted in a productivity increase of 12.5 percent with approximated savings of US {dollar}45,000 in one year. |
