The Question
Case study · Manufacturing · Paint and finishing
Client's brief · reconstructed excerpt · values held in confidence
(withheld), a doors and windows manufacturer in (withheld), paints every unit it sells in its own paint department. Demand is up (withheld) percent, and the department has to raise its output to match. Almost nothing about the work is standard: the product mix shifts week to week, custom units take their own steps, operation times differ from product to product, and work cells come and go with the schedule. Management is weighing a second question too: once its own orders are covered, could the department paint for other manufacturers and bill for it?
Bars cover values SimWell holds and is not releasing. The released figures stand as printed.
§ 1
A spreadsheet sees average hours per unit. A custom paint shop runs on sequence: every color change stops the booth, custom units take extra steps, and a work cell that is down on Tuesday pushes Tuesday's jobs into Wednesday. Window and door makers who run short of paint capacity often send work out to job shops to hold delivery dates. This department was weighing the reverse move: become the job shop. To do that, it had to know how much of its week was truly spare, and an average cannot show it.
§ 2
SimWell built the department in Arena, from the arrival of each batch to its exit, with the painting logic set batch by batch. Planners enter the production plan and its parameters through a custom input screen. The model paints a full month of that plan and returns a dashboard of resource use, plan completion, and the other measures the team tracks.
§ 3
Whether a month's plan fits before the month starts, which batches would finish late, which cells would be stretched and which would sit idle, and how a different plan or sequence changes the answer. The same view shows the time left over once the company's own work is done: the capacity it could offer to other manufacturers.
Representative model. Jobs, colors, and hours shown are illustrative, not client data.
Cleared for release
The department can now check each month's production plan before it runs, and test plans built for higher demand.
The model was built to outlast the first decision. Planners can run it daily to judge whether a plan is feasible and robust, and it gives management the numbers to weigh selling paint capacity to other manufacturers.
SimWell helps operators make better decisions under uncertainty. We build simulation and optimization models that reflect operational reality, test scenarios before committing resources, and transfer capability so teams can run decisions independently.
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