Evaluating Design Alternatives of an Extruded Food Production Line Using Simulation

Several designs of a manufacturing line for the production of extruded foods were developed and compared with the current production line design. The manufacturing line consisted of six unit operations: batching, grinding, extruding, drying, further processing, and packing. The authors performed the comparisons by simulating the current design and the proposed alternatives. The alternatives consisted of modifications to the extruder-dryer and/or packing line designs. The simulation results indicated that all the alternate designs roughly doubled system throughput compared to current designs but did not differ significantly in performance among themselves. The doubled output is worth about $2.5 million per year. This is easily enough to justify the cost of new equipment. One design would cost less to implement than the others and thus was the preferred option.