The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) is a nationwide network of over seventy not-for-profit centers. The MEP is linked with the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and has the sole purpose of providing small and medium-size manufacturers with the assistance they need to be competitive and successful. The Alabama Technology Network (ATN) joined the MEP in 1996 and began operation through a partnership among the University of Alabama System, Auburn University, and select two-year colleges. The ATN has 10 centers statewide that are focused on providing technical and business solutions to Alabama companies in order to lead them to high performance. The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) is the Region 1 center of the ATN and concentrates a large portion of its efforts in the field of Lean Enterprise Development.
Lean Manufacturing is a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste through continuous process improvement by flowing the product at the pull of the customer. This paper discusses the use of a ProcessModel simulation, linked with a hands-on kanban simulation utilized by the UAH center for the ATN, to reveal benefits of a pull system. The paper focuses on using the ProcessModel kanban simulation to help see process constraints, underutilization, and to make purchasing and inventory control decisions.
ProcessModel Simulation to Show Benefits of Kanban-Pull System
Proceedings of the Huntsville Simulation Conference.
By The Society for Modeling and Simulation International, San Diego, CA. Reprinted by permission.