Improving the Production Process for a Medical Device Manufacturing Company using Monte Carlo Simulation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37266/ISER.2016v4i1.pp45-53Abstract
This work studies a medical product development, assembly, and packaging company that uses a paper-based method to track jobs through their assembly process. The paperwork often has errors, which must be corrected before distribution, causing delays in manufacturing and shipment and resulting in lost time and money. The project team analyzed the company's production process to identify areas for improvement. Through statistical analyses of the company’s process data, the team established error categorization, location, and probability of occurrence. In order to address sources of error, the project team diagrammed the company's manufacturing floor and created a list of issues within each step of the manufacturing process as well as potential solutions to these problems. The team created a simulation of the manufacturing process and used this tool to analyze potential process changes to decrease the number of employee hours wasted in order to fix discrepancies. The simulation proved to be an invaluable tool that helped the company better understand their process. It helped to identify which jobs create the most errors, how many errors occur per month, and how much money the company loses on time spent correcting the errors. Eleven potential solutions were considered, but two of them appeared to yield the best results. Implementing a total quality management (TQM) system would conservatively reduce error counts by 71.3%. Implementing a start quantity to the company's electronic system would conservatively reduce mean hours wasted from 22.60 to 21.73 hours per month and mean salary lost from $519.82 to $499.80 per month. Using insights from the simulation, the project team then coordinated with management to decide whether error rates or time and salary spent to correct errors were more important to address. As of this writing, as a result of this study, the company is taking steps to implement a TQM system in order to decrease errors in their job tracking process.References
Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century Playbook. (2008). Retrieved December 11, 2015 from
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/af/afd-090327-040_afso21-playbook.pdf
Denny, W.C., King, M.W., Wilck, J.H. (2004). Implementation of a Software Tool for a Gold Electroplating Bath Operation. Proceedings of the 2004 System and Information Engineering Design Symposium, 2004, 1-7.
Guo, C., Li, X., Wilck, J.H. (2011). Supply Chain Information Sharing Strategy on Inventory Systems. T. Doolen and E. Van Aken (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2011 Industrial and Systems Engineering Research Conference, 2011, 1-8.
Huang, Y., Li, X., Wilck, J.H., Berg, T. (2012). Cost Reduction in Healthcare via Lean Six Sigma. G. Lim and J.W. Herrmann (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2012 Industrial and Systems Engineering Research Conference, 2012, 1-8.
Jahangirian, M., Eldabi, T., Naseer, A., Stergioulas, L.K., Young, T. (2010). Simulation in manufacturing and business: A review. European Journal of Operational Research, 203(1), 2010, 1-13.
Johnson, W., Jellinek, H., Klotz, L., Rao, R., Card, S. (1993). Bridging the Paper and Electronic Worlds: The Paper User Interface. Interchi ‘93, 1993, 507-512.
Nahmias, S., Olsen, T.L. (2015). Production and Operations Analysis. (7th Ed.) Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
Powell, D., Riezebos, J., Strandhagen, J.O. (2013). Lean production and ERP systems in small- and medium-sized enterprises: ERP support for pull production. International Journal of Production Research, 51(2), 2013, 395-409.
Singer, S.J., Vogus, T.J. (2013). Reducing Hospital Errors: Interventions that Build Safety Culture. J.E. Fielding (Ed.), Annual Review of Public Health, Vol. 34, 2013, (pp. 373-396). Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
The copyediting stage is intended to improve the flow, clarity, grammar, wording, and formatting of the article. It represents the last chance for the author to make any substantial changes to the text because the next stage is restricted to typos and formatting corrections. The file to be copyedited is in Word or .rtf format and therefore can easily be edited as a word processing document. The set of instructions displayed here proposes two approaches to copyediting. One is based on Microsoft Word's Track Changes feature and requires that the copy editor, editor, and author have access to this program. A second system, which is software independent, has been borrowed, with permission, from the Harvard Educational Review. The journal editor is in a position to modify these instructions, so suggestions can be made to improve the process for this journal.
