Simulation modelling and analysis of a JIT production system

This study is based on investigating the performance of a multi-item, multi-line, multi-stage JIT system in a stochastic environment. Distributions of processing time and demand arrivals are considered as sources of randomness. This system is modeled in SLAM II, which is a FORTRAN based simulation language. In this study, the effects of four factors on the system performance measures such as output rate, waiting time, WIP lenght and utilization are tested. In addition, the production size combination optimizing the system performance at determined total production sizes is searched. In the experimental design, partial factorial design is applied by separating all factors into the two-factor groups and then each design cluster is analysed separately. In order to evaluate the experimental results statistically, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is applied and the MTNITAB package is used for this purpose.