A Discrete Event Simulation Case Study of Energy Consumption and Time Required for Medium Voltage Power Cable Manufacturing

Abstract

Cable manufacturing is a very competitive industry. Hence, to face with this competitiveness manufactures must offer the similar product at a lower price. The fuse of this issue and manufacturer capacity resulted the idea to have a new more productive production line. This requires expected to have an ideal production line – economical production line and shorter processing time. For having the new line, experimentation on the line is compulsory to make sure it is more productive than the existing one. Though, because of having new physical experimentation is too costly and difficult due to the size and weight of the machines, discrete event simulation is proposed. Therefore, this paper aims to propose an alternative production line flow that is more optimal in terms of energy consumption and time required to manufacture the selected cable through discrete event simulation. The model will be developed and simulated by Arena Software. This model initially is verified and validated by production line technical staff through Face and Historical Data approaches. Fortunately, the proposed alternative production line outperformed standard production line. The lesser energy consumption (0.75%) and time required (3.28%) can be obtained through the alternative production line. Thus, this is a winnable strategy in this competitive market of the cable manufacturing industry. In large, to manufacture the pre-determined cable structure at certain cable length through this alternative production line, numerically not only the time required is less three days, also the energy reduction about 3GJ can be achieved.