Improving the Production Process of a Bakery: A Simulation Approach

The present study brings forward a simulation-based study of the production process of a Portuguese bakery. The main goal is to analyse different production processes and propose improvements, through the use of discrete event simulation. A relevant set of data was collected, and four productive processes were selected to be modelled using Simio software (Simulation Modelling based on Intelligent Objects). The analysis of the developed models highlighted the need for improvements and different scenarios were created to this purpose. Among the obtained results, it was found that the adoption of mixed production scenarios allowed the increase of the production level while maintaining the current existing resources. In conclusion, this study highlighted the ability of the simulation technique to analyse manufacturing processes, throughout the creation of different scenarios, providing insights on the production process optimising the companies’ productive performance.