Analytical methods to support continuous improvements at Scania

Considerable effort is usually devoted by companies to ensure the competitiveness of their manufacturing systems. This makes continuous improvement a central topic in production management activities. Less attention is given to the methods that drive improvement and to the way actions are defined and selected. In the literature, analytical models and simulation are the most widely used tools for manufacturing systems' performance evaluation and improvement. In practice, simple approaches, mainly based on experience, seems to be the best compromise to face this problem. In a collaboration project between Politecnico di Milano ( Milano, Italy), Kungliga Tekniska hogskolan ( Stockholm, Sweden) and Scania CV AB (Sodertalje, Sweden) within the European Network of Excellence VRL-KCiP we proposed a new methodology, based on analytical methods, to support the company in manufacturing system productivity improvement through re-configuration. The application of this approach to the Scania six-cylinder engine-block machining line enabled a remarkable increment in throughput by selecting analytically the most suitable improvement actions.