1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background of the Project
Customers have numerous choices when it comes to buying any product. Combined with choices available to the consumer and expectation of shorter order fulfillment lead times, customers have become more fickle in their purchasing decisions and less loyal to their old long-standing business relationships.
In recent years, companies have become increasingly focused on market demand and customers responsiveness. This has led to the implementation and adoption of manufacturing improvement and optimization techniques in the automotive industry. Optimization is necessary for the control of any business process to achieve better product quality, high productivity with low cost.
Optimization is defined as minimization or maximization of cost function with variable input parameters. The word optimization commonly refers to the mathematical handling of parameters in order to maximize or minimize a mathematical function. The global optimization is about finding the best possible solutions for given problems. This makes optimization of various systems an increasingly important activity. Apart from this, manufacturing systems are also optimized using any of the process improvement methods. Improvement methods such as lean, just in time, six sigma and the likes, have contributed immensely to system success and profitability.
In order to optimize the manufacturing process, a company has to have the ability to identify its main bottlenecks in manufacturing process. It needs to be able to set the proper goals, i.e. grouping company's activities into modules and set the control points.
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