A simulation case study of production planning and control in printed wiring board manufacturing

Production planning and control in printed wiring board (PWB) manufacturing is becoming more difficult as PWB technology is developing and the production routings become more complex. Simultaneously, the strategic importance of delivery accuracy, short delivery times, and production flexibility is increasing with the highly fluctuating demand and short product life cycles of end products. New principles, that minimize throughput time while guaranteeing excellent customer service and adequate capacity utilization, are needed for production planning and control. Simulation is needed in order to develop the new principles and test their superiority. This paper presents an ongoing simulation project that aims at developing the production planning and control of a PWB manufacturer. In the project, a discrete event simulation model is built of a pilot case factory. The model is used for comparing the effect of scheduling, queuing rules, buffer policies, and lot sizes on customer service and cost efficiency.