Simulation model of a stop production line: the relationship between financial return and productivity

Making innovations to become competitive is not always an easy task, and in the industrial sphere, this thinking becomes even more complex. In this sense, proper use in raw material transformation processes becomes very challenging for managers, since improving processes is a condition where more can be done with less. Thus, many organizations seek to develop improvements through existing activities using a variety of techniques that are addressed in the literature, such as value flow mapping, lean production, simulations, among others. Therefore, this article aims to study and apply the computational simulation, through the use of Tecnomatix Plant Simulation © software, to obtain the best relation between financial return and productivity of a upholstery production line. In the methodology of this work was carried out the structural proposition of five scenarios. For the construction of these, a current scenario of the production line was carried out and for each new scenario, operators were added with new tasks to be performed. Although the final results show a better financial return for scenario three, the results obtained in scenario five are significant in terms of productivity indicators, although the cost with extra operators is much higher than in the other scenarios. Thus, it was clear the relevance of applying simulation in the production line, since the model assisted the managers in the decision making.