Hartwall – Production strategy simulation

Background

Hartwall is Finland’s largest beer an soft drink producer and it has production plants in Lahti and Karijoki. Hartwall is part of danish multinational company: Royal Unibrew. The whole production of Helsinki was moved to Lahti. Centralising the production with current methods required expansion of the storing capacity in Lahti. A simulation was conducted which indicated the needed storage sizes depending on the production strategy.

The assignment and the results

The objective of the simulation was to develope the operation of Lahti plant in a manner that expansion of the storage could be averted. The simulation aimed to find production principles that would minimise the storage space of ready products without compromising delivery reliability while taking into account the new production lines. Dozens of different runs were conducted on how to develop the operation. The simulation helped to find production principles that would allow downsizing of the ready product storage significantly while keeping the delivery reliability at excellent level.

Benefits

The simulation yielded the following benefits

  • Expansion of the storage was averted
  • Operability of the new production strategy was ensured
  • Size of the ready product storage was minimised
  • The setting times of the new production programs were minimised
  • The risks related to centralisation of the production were minimised
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