Sensors & Transducers



Vol. 261, Issue 2, July 2023, pp. 55-60





Synergies in the Application of Industry 4.0 and Lean Manufacturing at a Product Label Manufacturer – A Discrete Event Simulation Case Study



* Stefan HARRISON, Boppana V. CHOWDARY



Faculty of Engineering, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus, Trinidad, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago

E-mail: Stefan.Harrison@my.uwi.edu, Boppana.Chowdary@sta.uwi.edu



Received: Accepted: Published:





Abstract: Industry 4.0 is a manufacturing philosophy and industry standard for the design of Cyber-Physical Production Systems. The aim of Industry 4.0 is the creation of a smart manufacturing system. A smart system which applies novel applications of developed and current technologies to simplify complex work and enable waste averse production. It is based on the concepts of data-driven decision support services, Horizontal and Vertical Information Technology-Operations Technology value-chain integration, decentralized control and flexible production. Lean Manufacturing is a value-to-customer- focused manufacturing philosophy which applies procedures designed to ingrain waste reduction and efficient, competency- building practices into workplace culture. The aim of this paper is to examine the synergistic benefits of these manufacturing philosophies on a local firm using Discrete Event Simulation. The key performance indicators of Flow Time, Waiting Time and Work in Process were used to determine the efficacy of the models investigated. The study results indicated a 52 %, 57 % and 58 % improvement in the respective metrics of the best performing proposed model when com-pared to the existing system.


Keywords: Industry 4.0, Lean manufacturing, Discrete event simulation, Case study.

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