Reducing negative impact of machine failures on performance of filling and packaging production line - a simulative study

The paper demonstrates the use of a Discrete Event Simulation tool to reduce the negative impact of machine failures on the performance of a filling line. The buffer allocation problem has received a lot of attention, but still there are examples of unreliable production systems for which a buffer can be allocated in order to increase their productivity. The subject of the study is a filling and packaging production line which consisted of seven machines connected by conveyors. Machine failures are registered by maintenance Data Acquisition system. Those data are used to derive statistical distributions for Time To Repair and Time Between Failures. The model is built using FlexSim simulation software and different allocation scenarios are considered. Introduction of buffers results in an increase in mean line throughput by 15%. The initial results indicate that the proposed approach may lead to the reduction of negative effects of machine failures.