Simulation modeling to increase production capacity from prototype to production: A case study of rocket motor parts manufacturing plant

Abstract

In manufacturing industry, a newly developed product shall go from a stage of research and de-velopment to preliminary design, detailed design and prototyping in order to reach a final goal of mass pro-duction. In general, during designing and prototyping phase, the product is produced in a small amount only for test and verification. Once the design is approved and all manufacturing processes are verified, only then will the product be produced in a large quantity to deliver to customers. For this reason, a production line for prototyping and mass manufacturing is normally set up differently with regard to a number of parts pro-duced. In this study, a simulation modeling by ARENA simulation software is used to investigate and ana-lyze the required resources in order to increase production capacity from prototyping phase to production phase of a rocket motor parts manufacturing plant.