Loading Process Improvement of Wood Substitute Industry Using Value Stream Mapping and Simulation

Abstract

The aim of this research is to study and analyze the current operations and bottleneck of loading process of Wood Substitute industry by using Value Stream Mapping (VSM) to identify ways to reduce non-value added time of loading process. Then, simulation models are used to evaluate and compare the efficiency and effectiveness of each improvement idea. The case study used in this research is a warehouse in a company that manufacture and sales of wood substitute products. The improvement effectiveness is measured by two criterions which are an average total time of loading process and an average waiting time at warehouse. The researchers propose four ideas to reduce non-value added time including 1) Reduce pick and transfer goods while loading 2) Reduce a waiting time of loading the uncompleted manufacturing and packaging 3) The combination of reduce pick and transfer goods while loading and reduce a waiting time of loading the uncompleted manufacturing and packaging and 4) Adding load resources. The results show that adding load resources idea is the most effective way to reduce the average total time of loading process and the average waiting time at warehouse. The reduction of the average total time of loading process, the average waiting time at warehouse for Flatbed Truck, and the average waiting time at warehouse for container truck are 3%, 92% and 94%, respectively.