Line Balancing in the Hard Disk Drive Process Using Simulation Techniques

Authors: Teerapun Saeheaw, Nivit Charoenchai, Wichai Chattinnawat

Abstract:

Simulation model is an easy way to build up models to represent real life scenarios, to identify bottlenecks and to enhance system performance. Using a valid simulation model may give several advantages in creating better manufacturing design in order to improve the system performances. This paper presents result of implementing a simulation model to design hard disk drive manufacturing process by applying line balancing to improve both productivity and quality of hard disk drive process. The line balance efficiency showed 86% decrease in work in process, output was increased by an average of 80%, average time in the system was decreased 86% and waiting time was decreased 90%.

Keywords: line balancing, arena, hard disk drive process, simulation, work in process (WIP)

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1076768

References:

[1] Xue, X. 1997. Brief hybrid method for real time simulation, Proc. of the World Congress on System Simulation (WCSS-97). Singapore, September 01-03, 19-21.
[2] Law, A.M.; Kelton, W.D. (2000). Simulation Modeling and Analysis, 3rd edition. Singapore: McGraw-Hill.
[3] Novitsky, M.P. (1983). Process industries - where are you?, Production and Inventory Management Journal, 24, 1, 118-121.
[4] Katayama, H. (1996). On a two-stage hierarchical production planning system for process industries, International Journal of Production Economics , 44, 1-2, 63-72.
[5] White, C.H. and Tsai, B.W. (1999). Integrated Manufacturing Logistics: byproducts can be critical, Proceedings of the 1999 Winter Simulation Conference, SCS, 1310-1315.
[6] Vaidyanathan, B.S., Miller, D.M., Park, Y.H. (1998). Application of discrete event simulation in production scheduling, Proceedings of the 1998 Winter Simulation Conference, SCS, 965-971.
[7] Saraph, P.V. (2001). Biotech Industry: Simulation and beyond, Proceedings of the 2001 Winter Simulation Conference, SCS, 838-843.
[8] B. Rekiek, A. Dolgui, A. Delchambre and A. Bratcu, "State of art of optimization methods for assembly line design", Annual Reviews in Control, vol. 26, pp. 163-174, 2006.
[9] C. Becker and A. Scholl, "A survey on problems and methods in generalized assembly line balancing", European Journal of Operational Research, vol. 168, pp. 694-715,2006.
[10] A. Scholl and C. Becker, "State-of-the-art exact and heuristic solution procedures for simple assembly line balancing", European Journal of Operational Research,