The overriding problem resided in [the food manufacturer's] legacy equipment for the packaging lines, but the challenge was identifying the specific equipment bottlenecks and the investment needed to fix them. Burns & McDonnell, a Kansas City, MO-based design and engineering firm, was bought in to help. They simulated the existing packaging line operations using Rockwell Automation's Arena software. Arena simulation uses what-if, deterministic modeling with single-point estimates; uncertain variables in the packaging line are assigned a "best guess" estimate.
Using existing production data, Burns & McDonnell simulated these three packaging lines and discovered that some equipment was underperforming. Burns & McDonnell captured overall plant capacity, production schedules, equipment reliability data, and equipment rates and capacities to create the simulated line.
According to Burns & McDonnell, production data was then used to build a range for each piece of packaging equipment. "The simulation software accurately modeled 150 days of plant floor output, which was compared against six months of historical plan-floor data," says Abbey Hatke, industrial engineer for Burns & McDonnell. "These results included both equipment reliability and line reliability, and were within 0.25 percent of each other-confirming that our team had created a realistic plant environment in which to test its simulations."
After sifting through plant data, the food manufacturer focused on 42 different scenarios to test and evaluate. The bundler, bottle capper, tray former, and palletizer were specifically targeted for individual analysis. Burns & McDonnell was able to capture the operating range for each piece of equipment and establish a performance average for 120 days of production.
The result was the food company avoided a costly rip-and-replace of the packaging lines and instead replaced only specific pieces of equipment. The total cost for the three new lines reached $18 million, but it produced 80 percent less downtime. This delivered the much-needed 10 percent increase in production capacity sought by the company, according to Burns & McDonnell.
