Abstract:
Woodlam is the leading plywood furniture
manufacturer in South Africa, experiencing
steady growth in the last few years. Due to
the increasing cost of electricity in South
Africa it has become important for
companies within the manufacturing
industry to find methods to optimize their
electricity consumption. This enables these
manufacturers to reduce operating costs.
Globalization and market pressures also
make it necessary to find a means to reduce
the cost of production in order to increase
profit and remain competitive both locally
and internationally. Addressing this problem
correctly results in a more profitable
business model while allowing production
capacity to meet the customer demand.
This report includes a literature review to
understand key concepts, electricity data collection and analysis, solution research
and design of the approach to solving the
problem as well as the evaluation and
validation of the proposed improvements.
This report outlines the importance of
finding an effective solution to rising
electricity manufacturing costs and depicts
the methodology and steps necessary to
obtain the desired optimal solution. An indepth
study was conducted to provide
insight into the manufacturing process.
Electricity tariffs and solution approaches
were also examined from which an
operations research mixed integer linear
programming model (MILP) was selected.
This model was then formulated to achieve
the desired financial benefits that can be
achieved through the intelligent scheduling
of operations. The monetary and
environmental results of the (MILP) model
depict that by scheduling the production of
the machinery has the ability to assist the
production manager to reduce the electricity
cost by avoiding peak electricity tariff time
periods. The validation process to determine
the success of the project is also outlined.
