A Simulation Based Study on Increasing Production Capacity in a Crankshaft Line Considering Limited Budget and Space

In this paper, we discussed a problem for improving the throughput of a crankshaft manufacturing line in an automotive factory in which the budget for purchasing new machines and installing additional buffers is limited. We also considered the constraint of available space for both of machine and buffer. Although this problem seems like a kind of buffer allocation problem, it is different from buffer allocation problem because additional machines are also considered. Thus, it is not easy to calculate the throughput by mathematical model, and therefore simulation model was developed using $ARENA^{(R)}$ for estimating throughput. To determine the investment plan, a modified Arrow Assignment Rule under some constraints was suggested and it was applied to the real case.