Johann HAY GmbH & Co. KG optimises new plant in advance using simulation
Johann Hay GmbH & Co. KG, based in Bad Sodernheim (Germany), is manufacturer of forged and processed engine, gear and axle components for all German and most European OEMs.
The planned new plant of Johann HAY GmbH & Co. KG is to manufacture large-scale rings, for example for wind turbines. The high product variance makes considerable demands on the flexibility of the manufacturing plant.
A particular challenge during the planning is to find an optimal combination of the required close linking of individual manufacturing steps and the decoupling of the plant, which is wise from a logistics viewpoint.
Furthermore, the simulation has to illustrate how the production orders are best assigned in order to ensure a high capacity utilisation of the plants and ultimately to achieve excellent productivity. Crucial investment decisions, e.g. on the type and number of furnaces or material-handling cranes to be installed, are made based on the simulation results.
- simulating the planned production plant for large-scale rings including logistics processes from the raw material to distribution
- taking into account all production steps like sawing, forging, rolling, hardening, etc.
- investigating different layout alternatives as well as different plant technology options
- analyzing the effects of changing customer demand (varying ring sizes)
- determining order throughput times, stock levels and possible bottlenecks
- development of improvement measures for bottlenecks
- safeguarding the planning
- investigating plant capacity of the different alternatives
- determining necessary size of material buffers and the best layout alternative
- finding the advantages of new plant technologies
