Simulation Based Approach to Evaluate Modular Manufacturing System in the Apparel Industry
Keywords:
Apparel, Simulation, Modular ManufacturingAbstract
The Sri Lankan garment industry needs to become competitive to face the quota-free global challenges and industry is now facing new challenges to compete with a global market. In the path to achieve the new challenges to compete with quota-free global, many Sri Lankan apparel manufacturing companies are moving towards lean concept, especially into modular manufacturing from traditional line production. Recent interactions with local apparel manufacturing companies revealed that most factories could not achieve desired results through modular systems due to various causes such as resources and capacity issues, operational issues and production strategies. Furthermore, it appears that many apparel manufactures are uncertain about the outcomes of the modular system with respect to their own situations before implementing in a real system. Therefore, it is very important to compare performance and operational characteristics of the modular system over the line production system before adoption of such changes. These changes are costly and time consuming in the real situation, and many manufactures are resistant to these changes, especially while production are running for existing orders. This paper discusses how computer simulation is used as a test bed for compare production performance in two production systems, line and modular, before they are implemented in real systems.
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