Layout Design and Short Term Production Scheduling for a Composites Manufacturing Company

Abstract: In such a competitive market and in an environment with constant changes is vital for a company to design a suitable plant layout that allows it to respond effectively to these demands. This point becomes even more important in a newly established company, the case of this master thesis, as it starts from scratch when undertaking the design.
In this master thesis two parts can be clearly distinguished. The first of these is the design discussed earlier while the second part examines the scheduling of production for the same factory. The first part has been developed together with Jorge Alonso Campo.
For the design of plant layout has been decided to create a virtual model of the plant using a simulation software. This model may be used also in the future by the company to carry out tests in an easy and efficient way on multiple scenarios as a possible increase in production, change in the number of operators, etc.
In the case in question the model is used to study the distances traveled by the workers during the manufacturing process in the three previously developed alternatives. For the development of these alternatives the SLP method has been used to study each workstation and its relationship with the others.
The selected alternative will be the one that is considered optimal mainly using these two methods.
In the second part of the master thesis the production scheduling is made for the factory using two different views, grouping of equal tasks or group of tasks from the same end product. Through this scheduling conclusions may be drawn regarding the use of working time, maximum productions, detection of possible areas of improvement...