Laundry System Optimization on an In-flight Service Company

Abstract

Airline industry has rapidly increased as many people prefer airplane as airlines offer inflight meals and entertainment and comfortability. The in-flight materials---comfortability---are being laundered in an in-flight service company. This paper aimed to find an optimal schedule for an in-flight service company by minimizing the total operation time in a day. In addition, it helps the company for making decision on purchasing additional machines. The methodology used in this paper were linear programming with assignment and transportation model, scheduling, and simulation to prove the result of optimization. The optimization was conducted using Microsoft Excel Solver and the simulation used a program called as Tecnomatix Plant Simulation. After the optimization was finished, simulation model development was required to check the validity and whether it is applicable for the laundry system within the company. The result of this paper showed the company needs to buy one additional tumble dryer to meet the customers' requirement and the productivity level was increased