| dc.description.abstract | Taiwan’s fast-moving consumer goods manufacturing industry has brought about rapid changes in the operating environment of today’s diversified market. Many companies are committed to providing differentiated products to meet consumer demand, with the large-quantity, essentially undiversified production from the past gradually evolving into a small-quantity, highly diversified production model. As the process, machines, and types of materials become more varied, production operations and scheduling also become more complicated. The biggest challenge for companies is how to develop a reasonable production schedule that will meet customer demand while simultaneously achieving multiple goals. This is one of the key elements of production and manufacturing and concerns the overall production costs, as well as operating costs and efficiency.
The tissue converting line primarily uses flow shop production line, which are composed of many different pieces of equipment connected with conveyor belts; semi-finished products are continuously being transported and processed at each stage until the final finished product is completed. Consistent with small-quantity, highly diversified market patterns, the same production line can be configured with different equipment, and the corresponding production process can be changed to meet the needs of different products. Producing diverse products requires equipment switching or adjustments, thus creating setup time; the number of setups required and the duration of setup time can greatly impact production capacity and productivity.
Through a literature review, this study integrates the relevant dispatching rules and performance measurement indicators, while adding the concept of group technology. The advantages and disadvantages of various dispatching methods are explored considering flow shops in a small-quantity, highly diversified production model, leading to a discussion of the dispatching method that is most suitable for the tissue converting line and has the smallest impact on production capacity. It’s been proofed that the most efficient method to schedule small-quantity, highly diversified production is to divide the products into N group for group scheduling. In fact, if the setup time and frequency could be under control effectively, the total process time could be decreased and improve the productivity and cost.
Keyword: Dispatching Rules, Key Performance Indicators, Flow Shop, Tissue Converting Line | en_US |