Feb 15, 2019
About the Customer
Our Industries eXcellence team has just delivered a successful Manufacturing Plant Simulation project for a leading American industrial sand supplier and mining corporation. The sand and coated sand products produced by the customer are used in a variety of industrial and environmental applications. Markets they serve include oil and gas production (hydraulic fracturing), metal casting, construction, recreation, filter media, glass, and agriculture among others. The customer is committed to producing high quality industrial silica sand products, operating their dispersed U.S. facilities for sand processing, coating, transloading, and R&D in an environmentally responsible manner, in order to ensure the health and wellness of their associates and of the communities in which they operate.
The Customer’s Challenge
Engineering’s team of experts were brought in by the industrial sand supplier to help them better plan and optimize the layout of their new sand processing facility in Texas. As the customer was getting closer to opening the gates to this location, they had questions about how to maximize sand throughput while keeping the truck cycle times at a reasonable level. The customer came to Engineering with the raw data of sand production rates, facility layout, processing times and other variables in the new facility. Our simulation team then utilized the information and estimates provided for the new facility to create a customized simulation model using Siemens Tecnomatix Plant Simulation software.
About the Project
Leveraging our Tecnomatix technical expertise, simulation experience and industry knowledge, our team was asked to estimate the production capabilities at the customer’s new facility. A layout drawing of the facility was utilized as a starting point of the simulation model. The simulation objects were then overlaid on the map, creating a 3D representation of the facility. To mimic the movement of the trucks through the facility and be able to track the backups, the model was scaled to replicate the actual distances. Once the detailed layout was completed, each station received the required processing times. Custom logic was developed and applied to some stations to mimic the automated processes of the production facility, including the lane assignment of a truck dependent on the type of the truck, the filling station queue and the capacity of the filling station.
Once the simulation model was completed, the sand production estimates and truck arrivals were utilized to provide initial throughput and bottleneck feedback of the facility. Then, additional simulation runs were completed using different truck arrival patterns. The simulation determined that approximately a 31.4% increase in truck throughput and a 60.8% decrease in cycle time could be achieved.
After the new facility first opened its door and began producing sand, the customer started recording actual time data to help determine areas of the simulation that could be enhanced. The processing times in the simulation model were updated based on the recorded time and the custom logic was updated to reduce assumptions in the simulation. The simulation was then run again to determine the maximum truck throughput while still keeping the cycle time within a reasonable timeframe. With the decrease in processing times, the simulated throughput increased an additional 37.8% and the cycle time decreased an additional 52%.
Engineering’s Advantage
The facility simulation model built and delivered by Engineering Industries eXcellence completely transformed the layout and processes put in place in the customer's new facility. Having better understood the effect of all inputs, the options available, as well as the most costly bottlenecks, the manufacturer was able to make decisions and enforce processes that maximized their output, minimized inefficiencies and costs, and optimized the utilization of all their resources. This is the power of manufacturing simulation. Benefits gained by the customer include:
- Improved productivity of facility
- Reduced investment in planning of new facility
- Reduced inventory and throughput time
- Optimized system dimensions, including buffer sizes
- Lowered investment risks through early proof of concept
- Maximized use of manufacturing resources
