PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT USING SIMULATION MODELING AND LEAN TOOLS: A CASE STUDY

The purpose of this study was to investigate ways to improve productivity of a local security garage door manufacturing company. The company is based in Gaborone, Botswana and faces serious productivity challenges, including long throughput time, high inventory, and low worker utilisation. The result of these challenges is poor product quality and high o perating costs resulting in uncompetitive products. The company would like to transform their manufacturing system to a lean manufacturing system. This paper describes the company’s current manufacturing system and proposes improvements that reduce wastes identified in the current system. Discrete event simulation is used to compare the performance of the current manufacturing system, and the proposed lean manufacturing system. The study showed that the proposed manufacturing system significantly improves material flow, assembly line balance efficiency, worker utilisation, and reduces manufacturing lead time.