Predictive maintenance in a manufacturing environment through FIT manufacturing and discrete event simulation

The focus of this paper is to introduce the use of FIT manufacturing principles and discrete event simulation in a manufacturing environment for productivity increase and predictive maintenance. FIT manufacturing primarily deals with lean, agile and sustainable concepts to achieve the best process flow while maintaining productivity, profitability and waste at their optimum levels. In this study, a manufacturing process has been modelled by process mapping and utilised by Discrete Event Simulation under FIT manufacturing constraints to study the behaviour of the manufacturing system. The simulation results were successfully used to identify any delays in the process flow caused by machine breakdowns. The study showed that this information could be used for the purpose of predictive maintenance which in turn will reduce machine down times and increase the process flow and the overall efficiency