A queueing based analysis of a packing line

Recticel Bedding Hulshout is a mattress manufacturer. The company intends to build a new packing line as a final step in their production lay-out redesign project. The objective of this study consists in answering the question whether, given the production volumes, the mix of mattresses (without packing, once wrapped or double wrapped) is operationally feasible within different scenarios. The new lay-out of the packing line can be modelled as a typical multi product job shop with general arrivals and general processing. The products (units of different modes of mattresses, a mode being a typical packing form of a mattress) enter the system individually and are processed as such at all manipulation steps. The mode depends on the upstream production line and is characterised by a deterministic routing. A general open queueing network and a parallel simulation model have been developed. We are able to show that the new lay-out is feasible, taking into account the different scenarios. Methodologically, we reveal that both an approximated queueing network and simulation are suitable approaches to give an answer to the managerial questions. However, the queueing model has the advantage of being a much more flexible, in terms of conducting ‘what-if’ scenarios and computational efficient approach.