A Comparative Study of Unbalanced Production Lines Using Simulation Modeling: A Case Study for Solar Silicon Manufacturing

Chen-Yang Cheng, Shu-Fen Li, Chia-Leng Lee, Ranon Jientrakul and Chumpol Yuangyai
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Chen-Yang Cheng: Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei 10608, Taiwan
Shu-Fen Li: Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Chin-Yi University of Technology, Taichung 407224, Taiwan
Chia-Leng Lee: Department of Industrial Engineering and Enterprise Information, Tunghai University, Taichung 411030, Taiwan
Ranon Jientrakul: Department of Industrial Engineering, School of Engineering, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Bangkok 10520, Thailand
Chumpol Yuangyai: Department of Industrial Engineering, School of Engineering, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Bangkok 10520, Thailand

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 2, 1-15

Abstract: In the solar silicon manufacturing industry, the production time for crystal growth is ten times longer than at other workstations. The pre-processing time at the ingot-cutting station causes work-in-process (WIP) accumulation and an excessively long cycle time. This study aimed to find the most effective production system for reducing WIP accumulation and shortening the cycle time. The proposed approach considered pull production systems, and the response surface methodology was adopted for performance optimization. A simulation-based optimization technique was used for determining the optimal pull production system. The comparison between the results of various simulated pull production systems and those of the existing solar silicon manufacturing system showed that a hybrid production system in which a kanban station was installed before the bottleneck station with a CONWIP system incorporated for the rest of the production line could reduce the WIP volume by 26% and shorten the cycle time by 16% under the same throughput conditions.

Keywords: lean production; kanban pull production system; CONWIP; hybrid production system; simulation model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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