Factory and Process Design – From Idea to Practice

Harri Perämaa, Lumiglass Industries LLC and TechMan LLC

In the majority of cases, especially new investor(s), as they are planning their investments, forget
the overall conceptual picture, the overall cost, the production and production flow, the future
expansion plans, and the possible increase in automation, in the form of additional machine options.
The typical model is where the investor budgets as follows: a) machines from the supplier, b) the building and civil works, c) the electrical feeds including transformers.

Many times the forgotten issues and the cost are the utilities (water, clean water, cooling, pneumatic air, vacuum air), the movements, the machinery locations accounting for potential expansions, ergonomics,
and the realistic labor cost among other variables.

The aforementioned points, combined with expansion, in most cases leads to a chain reaction, where
the company’s production dynamically grows and expands, but the model cannot keep up in a controlled manner. The firm produces what it can, but does not produce what would have been the most profitable.
As the production commences in a new development, we observe a multiplied effect on the costs, and
the difference between the actual productivity versus a planned model usually leads to bottlenecks, and
the costs rise because the production has to be temporarily halted due to potential expansion works.

The base of the presentation is to show how a long-term 3D planning, along with simulations, allows the factory to be projected in the following 5 years.
This allows for Costs savings, reserve capacity indicators, control over units of production and expansion of production and control over risks.

As we add a budgetary model to the aforementioned factory 3-D planning model, the sales volume per units
produced, the simulation of the market price, the productivity and the sales, we achieve a control of invested
funds and budgetary risks. The automation and 3-D planning allows a company to achieve a base for
commencing work and the simulation of the costs involved, and the optimization, so that the company
reaches a full 3-D factory working and simulated model. The costs and productivity in this case have been
pre-calculated holding the final target (5 years into the future) in mind at all times.

As we compare the final costs savings to the used pre-planning cost estimations, we can conclude
that through 3-D modeling, the planned invested sum has had a multiplied effect on the cost savings.

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The Authors