Flexible processing mix strategy for complexity of automated manufacturing system

Deciding how to change/expand a production process of an automated system is a critical take for a manufacturer. The decision made as to how best of expanding will have a robust impression, with the potential for gain or loss. In this research work, automated manufacturing system (AMS) has been planned to produce three products: x
1
, x
2
, and x
3
as the system production variety. x
1
and x
2
are currently running on the manufacturing processes working at maximum capacity. The manufacturer needs to expand the production reaching x
3
of the variety and attempts to adopt the best of alternatives that supports the growth needed and the future market share in terms of enhancing the current capacity or establishing a new independent line of processes. The research focuses on gathering real-world industrial data from the existing stream of manufacturing processes to build an analytical model simulating an improvement methodology using computer simulation proposing an applicable tool of deciding methodology. The approach is a decision-lead strategy modeling whether it is the best to increase the capacity of the current production system or build a second line to have a dedicated production of the third product. Rockwell Software (ARENA 14.7-Platform) has been used to test the alternatives along with a set of experimentations using the full factorial design. Results show that (1) to achieve 50% increase in the throughput of AMS, building the new production system far exceeds the need and (2) the optimal cost of the current line is possible by increasing the resources capacity.