Integrated System Improvement and Optimization in SME Plywood Manufacturing

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The project is will be conducted in collaboration with SEATPLY Products Inc., a Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) in plywood products manufacturing in Montreal, Quebec. SEATPLY produces high quality molded plywood seating components and provides stable job opportunities to local population, many of them are new immigrants of diverse cultural and other backgrounds. Production planning and scheduling, quality control and improvement, material handling and material flow optimization are the scientific methods to achieve full potential of the production system in this type of industry. The partner organization has implemented cellular manufacturing framework for productivity and quality improvement. The proposed project is to integrate effective methods for data and information management, optimal production scheduling, optimal inventory management and advanced production process and management process in a computerized and company wide Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) system. Since the production system uses both automated machines and manual operations, it creates research challenges in coordinating and optimizing both types of operations to be monitored and controlled. The outcome of the research will be optimized solutions based on scientific methods leading to high quality products, optimal material flows and optimized inventory levels. The execution of these methods will be coordinated on an integrated ERP platform which is the main focus of this project. The ERP system and associated data technology will enable SEATPLY to be more competitive in this very important sector of Canadian industry. The students conducting this research have diverse research and culture backgrounds and will be trained to gain experiences in conducting research in a real production system. Such experiences will make them much better prepared to solving challenging practical problems in advanced and flexible manufacturing systems.