Artificial Intelligence in the Reduction of Work In Process WIP Management of Boiler Tubular Products Manufacturing

Abstract

To become a world class organization, the basic requirements of any manufacturing newlinecompany are Cycle time reduction, lower manufacturing cost and minimal inventory. newlineMajor part of the profitability of any organization is based on its management towards newlineman and material. Even though raw materials and finished goods have key part on newlinematerials management, the effect of work in process is very critical because it affects newlinethe cash flow of the company. In a large manufacturing facility, even minimum newlinequantity of WIP leads to major stock value in capital, locked up in WIP inventory. To newlinemaintain the optimum WIP inventory, it is required to uplift the production process by newlineeliminating the repetitive, null valued processes in the manufacturing cycle and newlinesupporting optimization, standardization and automation of the development newlineprocesses. The purpose is customer satisfaction with a cost-effective price. It is vital to newlinemaintain the optimum work in process inventory in the production flow. Hence a newlinestudy on production process flow has been made in a power plant boiler newlinemanufacturing company to analyze and minimize WIP in the production line with the newlineArtificial Intelligence technique, where the aim is to determine the factors affecting newlinethe Work-In-Process (WIP) inventory levels to meet the required demand for each newlineproduct. The decision variables are identified and their effects are analyzed. The newlineanalysis is focused on root cause of the problem, that is the fundamental problem newlineassociated with the systems in the boiler component fabrication work. This thesis newlinedeals about the activities in the manufacturing process of heat transfer coil which is a newlinecritical pressure part component in a boiler manufacturing company; it also analyses newlinethe time consumption and the utilization of basic resources like man, machine and newlinematerial in the production process. The activity consuming more time is identified newlinefrom the analysis and the decision variables are studied to have the optimum WIP newlineinventory.