Using simulation for facility layout problems: A case study of an ecuadorian handcraft chocolate company

During the last years, the global confectionery market has experienced an increase in their demand, being headed by chocolate due to the high consumption around the world. This performance and the expected growth represent a challenge for the confectionery market, especially for participants along the chocolate supply chain. This is the case of Cacao Company a growing handcraft chocolate company based in Ecuador, which seeks to expand to international confectionery market through the exportation of its products and whose current capacity is not enough to satisfy this expected demand. Therefore, a new facility layout design is required to cover the new demand, and it also should maintain the artisan aspects of the production process. Currently, solutions for facility layout problem (FLP) focus on design algorithms that use a from-toward table, which includes more information about the material handling system (MHS). A mixed integer programming problem (MIP) is also needed, because it finds the most efficient arrangement of the production departments within the new facility, minimizing the material handling cost (MHC). Several design alternatives generated by the MIP are evaluated through a discrete events simulation model in order to consider additional factors as relative locations of equipment, capacities, transport speeds and statistical distributed processing times at the workstations. As a result of this study, the most suitable layout alternative is selected, and its economic analysis is presented.