Effective Maintenance Enabled by the Use of Witness Simulation in a Libyan Cement Factory

Abstract

This paper presents a new approach using Witness Simulation in combating issues related to maintenance within the existing manufacturing facility. Currently, maintenance is a key issue as many machines breakdown due to every day wear and tear as well as the age of the machine itself. This causes bottlenecks within the entire production system as the schedules of production is disturbed and further backlogs are developed. Also, when machines breakdown there seems to be very little communication from one end to another i.e. parts are needed for the repair of many of the machines, for example, it is very common for the rotary kiln to come to a halt due to increased temperature and different quantities of a mixture of materials. In order to fix the problem and move back on schedule the maintenance team uses certain materials i.e. same materials, all the time. However, due to not having an adequate stock control system and the lack of communication many a times, parts are not readily available and hence the team wait further until parts arrive at the facility. This paper will demonstrate how all of the above problem areas can be adhered to via the use of adopting a simple automated response system using Witness Simulation. The demonstration will be based on a single machine for testing purposes to ensure efficiency that can later be applied to the entire system as a whole.
Keywords: Corrective maintenance, JIT (just in time), Material Requirement planning, Preventive maintenance, Simulation, Witness.