Accelerating process excellence using virtual discrete event process simulation
dti:reference: K1532G

Technical and commercial impact

This project supplies competitive advantage to industrial & service sectors, including health care, aerospace & construction, where the ‘institutionalised’ implementation of lean is essential but highly problematic due to their organisational cultures and complexity of their high variety/low volume work environments. The work will involve the development and integration of virtual engineering & discrete event simulation (DES) software with existing advanced visualisation hardware. Using these tools, work systems can be modelled with a high level of process detail and with DES providing the ability to simulate the effects of model changes at process and system levels. Applying a ‘complex systems’ approach will enable the components of such systems to be organised into self-organising networks with DES identifying the interactions between networks. Software tools will be developed for analysing data output from DES runs and for enabling advanced visualisation of the results, hence, making it possible to visualise and investigate the operation of complex work systems such that lean practitioners can both identify and solve waste problems and determine implementation needs. Assistance will be provided to lean practitioners in the form of lean training environments, software solutions for automatically identifying and prioritising root causes of waste problems, self-organisation of improvement teams and undertaking creative problem solving processes. Genetic algorithm functionality will generate optimal solutions to waste problems and provide the self-organisation processes required for work systems to be adaptive to external changes.

Benefits to consortium partners

Commercial benefits to partners	PECL	ULL	STSL	Virtali	SimX	DMU
Increased business growth
Improved contact retention
Productivity improvement
Improved equipment efficiency (OEE)
Reduced waste
Improved customer service
Improved employee skills
Improved research & dissemination

Additional benefits to consortium customers	PECL	ULL	STSL	Virtali	SimX	DMU
Improved price competitiveness, shorter delivery lead times, improved product quality, lower product costs, reduced working capital requirement, improved cash flow, reduced work in progress, reduced finished parts stock, reduce patch sizes to 'demand' size.

Sustainability impact economic and commercial benefits from use of lean practices are derived from reductions in processing lead times, reduced material waste and reduced inventory all of which result in reduced material, power & energy consumption and hence pollution and landfill. ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS will be gained in a wide range of areas, ie lean practices aim to:

• eliminate overproduction, thereby reducing waste and the use of energy and raw materials
• reduce excess inventory hence reducing energy use associated with transport, warehousing and reorganisation of unsold inventory
• less in-process and post-process inventory needed which avoids potential waste from damaged, spoiled, or deteriorated products
• reduce floor space needed for operations and storage hence potential decrease in energy use and less need to construct new facilities or purchase additional processing equipment
• reduce defects from processing and product changeovers hence reducing energy and resource needs and avoiding waste
• reduced contamination of products results in fewer product defects which reduces energy and resource needs
• lean eliminates waste at the product and process design stage and is, therefore, similar to "Design for Environment" methods
• A continuous improvement culture focuses on uncovering and eliminating hidden wastes and waste-generating activities
• less unneeded consumption of materials and chemicals when equipment, parts, and materials are organized and easy to find
• improving product durability and reliability can increase product lifespan, reducing environmental impact of meeting customer needs