Simulation modelling for productivity improvement of sorting process in a ceramic plant

Economic competitiveness is recently obligatory to the manufacturing companies. The cost reduction activity has become main focus from the managements. The continuously increasing labor cost every year has a direct impact on production costs. There are efforts to increase the efficiency of labor to get higher productivity. Investment in production technology is an alternative that is often used to improve production processes. However, such investments may require a lot of investment capital. Presenting information to support management decisions is therefore very necessary. Simulation-based models are proven beneficial when dealing with investors. In this study, FlexSim 3D simulation software was used to analyze the production process and the comparison and evaluation results between the existing process and proposed process in term of throughput, productivity, number of workers and the working efficiency are presented.