Tesi 3

POLITECNICO DI TORINO
Collegio di Ingegneria Aerospaziale, Meccanica, dell’Autoveicolo e della Produzione
Master of Science in
Automotive Engineering
Master’s Thesis
Analysis, modeling and simulation of the

production processes for prototype
bodywork components
Supervisor
prof. Franco Lombardi

Candidate
Riccardo Calza
September 2018
To my family
Contents
Contents ....................................................................................................................................... v
Figures........................................................................................................................................ vii
Tables .......................................................................................................................................... ix
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ 1
Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................. 3
Chapter 2: Industrial and production processes in Eurodies Italia .................................. 11
2.1 Modeling of dies ............................................................................................................. 20
2.2 Simulation of drawing ................................................................................................... 21
2.3 Casting process ............................................................................................................... 22
2.4 Milling process................................................................................................................ 24
2.5 Drawing process ............................................................................................................. 26
2.6 Redrawing process ......................................................................................................... 28
2.7 Flanging process ............................................................................................................. 28
2.8 Description of industrial press ..................................................................................... 30
2.9 3D Laser trimming process ........................................................................................... 32
Chapter 3: Company critical issues ....................................................................................... 35
Chapter 4: Model ...................................................................................................................... 41
4.1 Simplified model ............................................................................................................ 42
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4.1.1 Source and sink ........................................................................................................ 44
4.1.2 Queue ........................................................................................................................ 45
4.1.3 Transporter ............................................................................................................... 46
4.1.4 Operator .................................................................................................................... 47
4.1.5 Dispatcher................................................................................................................. 49
4.1.6 Processors ................................................................................................................. 50
4.1.7 Simulation ................................................................................................................ 56
4.2 Extended model .............................................................................................................. 57
4.2.1 Layout similar to the actual plant ......................................................................... 59
4.2.2 Increased number of machines .............................................................................. 61
4.2.3 Increased number of steps in production cycle, introduction of “step” label 61
4.2.4 Increased number of item types and different manufacturing times .............. 62
Chapter 5: Simulation .............................................................................................................. 67
5.1 Output measures ............................................................................................................ 70
5.2 Limitations of the model ............................................................................................... 76
Chapter 6: Results and discussion ......................................................................................... 79
Chapter 7: Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 86
References ................................................................................................................................... xi
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Figures
Figure 1: Activity diagram of industrial processes in Eurodies (first part) ..................... 12
Figure 2: Activity diagram of industrial processes in Eurodies (second part) ................ 13
Figure 3: A so-called “pallet” (support for the semifinished component) ....................... 15
Figure 4: Mounting of die and punch on the hydraulic press ........................................... 16
Figure 5: Shims inserted between “candles” and blankholder .......................................... 17
Figure 6: 3D laser trimming operation .................................................................................. 18
Figure 7: Activity diagram of the prototype component production phase .................... 19
Figure 8: Hydraulic presses built by Gigant Industries ...................................................... 32
Figure 9: Simplified model ...................................................................................................... 43
Figure 10: Source properties ................................................................................................... 44
Figure 11: Queue properties ................................................................................................... 45
Figure 12: Transporter properties .......................................................................................... 46
Figure 13: Distribution of times for forklift loading/unloading ........................................ 47
Figure 14: Operator properties and MTBF for operators' breaks ...................................... 48
Figure 15: Time distribution of operators' breaks (MTBF) ................................................. 49
Figure 16: Dispatcher properties ............................................................................................ 49
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Figure 17: 2D Laser software (processing times) ................................................................. 51
Figure 18: Empirical distribution resulting from 2D Laser times ...................................... 51
Figure 19: Histogram of the drawing cycle time and beta distribution............................ 52
Figure 20: Processor properties (press) ................................................................................. 54
Figure 21: 3D laser properties ................................................................................................. 56
Figure 22: Replication plot and frequency histogram of Time in System ........................ 56
Figure 23: Extended model on Flexsim ................................................................................. 58
Figure 24: Map of the plant ..................................................................................................... 60
Figure 25: Label “step” in a product’s properties ................................................................ 62
Figure 26: FexSim's experimenter .......................................................................................... 68
Figure 27: Sets of random numbers ....................................................................................... 69
Figure 28: Press properties, showing the parameter “Process time from table” ............. 70
Figure 29: Work In Progress graph ........................................................................................ 74
Figure 30: Derivative of the WIP curve ................................................................................. 74
Figure 31: Item Gantt chart ..................................................................................................... 81
Figure 32: Gantt chart data...................................................................................................... 82
Figure 33: Average queue time and manufacturing time for one mix ............................. 82
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Tables
Table 1: Distribution of times for every process step of each component........................ 63
Table 2: Average Beta expected value of every manufacturing process step .................. 65
Table 3: Parameters for the drawing of the 5 roofs, expected values of the betas .......... 71
Table 4: Processing times for each step and each product type......................................... 72
Table 5: Ideal manufacturing times for the five mixes ........................................................ 72
Table 6: Average time in system for the five mixes ............................................................. 75
Table 7: Resulting NVA time for each mix ........................................................................... 76
Table 8: NVA time and time in system std deviation for the five mixes .......................... 80
Table 9: Average queue time and manufacturing time for the five mixes ....................... 83
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Abstract
This work is the report of a three moths internship developed at Eurodies Italia S.r.l., an
Italian company located in the area of Turin, master manufacturer of prototype
bodywork components for the most important automotive OEMs.
After acquiring a first general overview of their specific industrial processes, a modeling
and simulation study was performed, aimed at providing the company with tools,
methods and suggestions to increase its productivity. This Thesis reports such study, as
well as the suggestions that may be useful for the company, and for other firms operating
in such sector.
The first chapter explains why a medium tier-2 company of the automotive sector is an
interesting object for a research study: several key figures of the European and Italian
automotive market are reported, both at a financial level and at an industrial and society
level.
The second chapter focuses on the company itself, reporting and analyzing all the
industrial and production processes that are needed to make a prototype bodywork
component: starting with the activity diagram, all the tasks that are performed in
Eurodies, from the construction of tools to the last finishing activity, are explained in
detail.
Subsequently, Chapter 3 reports some of the issues observed in the company, which this
Thesis wants to point out. The possible causes of the reduction in productivity that
affects Eurodies (and many other similar companies of the sector) are analyzed, in order
to make clear why such work of modeling and simulating the industrial processes was
meaningful.
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The fourth chapter starts from a brief description of FlexSim, the powerful simulation
software used for our analysis. It then proceeds with a very detailed explanation of how
the model of Eurodies was built on such software, starting from a simplified model and
then introducing the actual full model. This chapter also contains the description of how
time data about the duration of manufacturing activities was obtained and analyzed.
Chapter 5 describes how the simulation activity was conducted, introducing the concept
of “mix of components” being produced, and explaining how five different mixes were
tested, in order to discover which type of mix allowed to spend the minimum amount
of time on Non Value Added (NVA) activities.
Finally, the sixth chapter reports and discuss the results that were obtained: mixes
containing the lowest number of chassis internal reinforcement were the most performing.
As being developed at the end of this work, the Conclusions chapter gives a better
understanding of the reasons why this thesis, rather than being a collection of exact
results and prescriptions to the company, is actually meant to suggest a brand new
model and a method that can be successfully utilized to increase productivity in a
company that produces automotive prototype components.
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Chapter 1
Introduction
Cars and buses provide freedom and mobility for all, providing us with direct access to
education, health and employment. Trucks and vans deliver the goods and services that
are taken for granted in our daily lives, carrying 75% of freight transported over land
and delivering 14 billion tons of goods per year. Many of our essential public services -
such as postal, waste and emergency services - are delivered by cars, trucks and vans.
Europe's cars, vans, trucks and buses are the cleanest, safest and quietest in the world.
Europe leads the way in clean production, with decreasing quantities of water and
energy used to manufacture a vehicle, and much less CO2 and waste produced in the
process.
This Master thesis follows from several months of analysis of an Italian medium/small
company that operates in the automotive sector, producing prototype bodywork
components for passenger cars and other kinds of vehicles. This firm, called Eurodies
Italy S.r.l., is located in Avigliana, 25 kilometres away from downtown Turin.
As an Introduction to this work, it is necessary to consider some figures that explain why
a small tier-2 company of the automotive sector is an interesting object of study and
analysis for a Master Thesis.
As said above, cars are fundamental in today’s society: no one is willing (for practical or
psychological reasons) to live without a car. In addition to this intrinsic importance of
motor vehicles, the economic importance of the sector must be taken into account.
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ANALYSIS, MODELING AND SIMULATION OF THE PRODUCTION PROCESSES FOR PROTOTYPE
BODYWORK COMPONENTS
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According to the “Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs” department

of the European Commission (2018), the automotive industry is crucial for Europe’s
prosperity. The sector provides jobs for 12 million people and accounts for 4% of the
EU’s GDP. These 12 million jobs can be subdivided into manufacturing (3 million), sales
and maintenance (4.3 million), and transport (4.8 million). The EU is among the world's
biggest producers of motor vehicles and the sector represents the largest private investor
in research and development (R&D).
Economically speaking, the automotive industry is not only a great contribution to GDPs
and governments revenue by itself, but it also has an important multiplier effect in the
economy. It is important for upstream industries such as steel, chemicals, and textiles,
as well as downstream industries such as ICT, repair, and mobility services. Speaking
about government revenue, the most important figure that could be quoted here is the
tax contribution from motor vehicles: in just 15 EU countries, this number is equal to
almost €396 billion.
The automotive sector is also crucial for its ability to drive innovation. As Mario Draghi
(2007) said, the innovative capacity of a country leads to goods, services, organization of
the productive process of better and better quality. Innovation of product and process is
what sustains long term growth, increasing overall system productivity. According to
the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (2018), European OEMs have
spent around 50 billion euro in 2015 for innovation. Speaking about knowledge
networks that are present within the automotive supply chain, some peculiarities can be
highlighted:
- The global dimension of innovation. Large OEMs utilize resources that are
diffused at an international level. In particular, they show the tendency to use a
limited number of global platforms for motor vehicles, that is, if a car is built for
a precise market, it will have the features requested by those costumers, but it
will also show the technology used in other models of the same platform.
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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
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- The development of innovation process. In the automotive sector, innovation has

become a fundamental aspect. The introduction of electronic components has
increased the number of technological fields involved in the production, and the
growing competitive pressure has forced the OEMs to speed up the R&D process,
decreasing its cost. Therefore, car manufacturers began to utilize labs and test
centers spread all over the world, to develop and validate new products.
- The relationship with suppliers. Along the automotive supply chain, an
important part of the innovation and technology contribution comes from the
components makers, who often develop their products autonomously.
- Collaborations for research activity. Applied research, in the automotive field, is
often preceded by a base research activity, shared by different companies. Often,
OEMs sign agreement to jointly develop a new technology, which can be used
and customized by all of them. Sometimes, base research is performed by
autonomous actors, such as universities and specialized research centers.
The economic importance of the automotive sector in Europe has been presented, as well
as its fundamental contribution to the overall level of innovation of European industries.
Another reason why the automotive sector must not be neglected by lawmakers is the
large number of jobs that it provides.
According to a research performed by the Commission for Industry, Commerce and

Tourism of the Italian Senate (2015), the automotive sector has still a relevant role in the
western economies. Considering both the industrial phase (first transformation activities
and final manufacturing and assembly), and the distribution phase, the whole supply
chain generates almost 5% of the GDP in Italy. This figure is similar in other developed
economies, except for Germany, whose automotive sector is even more productive.
Basing on the 2014 data of the ANFIA (Associazione Nazionale Filiera Industria
Automobilistica), the total number of employees in the automotive supply chain is over
1,2 million units in Italy, with relevant effects on the ability to create wealth in different
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Italian regions. In Italy, the industrial phase generates around 28 billion euro of added
value and employs more than 500 thousand people, contributing to 2% of the GDP. The
distribution phase creates value for about 40 billion euro and employs 700 thousand
people.
Another figure that must not be neglected is the great ability of demand creation: in Italy,
every euro of added value in the manufacturing phase of the automotive sector sustains
other 2,2 additional euro in other fields of the economy.
Basing on a more recent study of Centro Studi Promotor (2017), the total spending for
cars in Italy was €189 billion in one year, equal to 11% of the GDP. More than 2 million
new passenger cars were registered, and forecasts indicate that market levels similar to
the pre-crisis ones will be reached in 2019 (two years earlier than the recovery of the pre-
crisis levels of GDP, expected for 2021).
The European countries where the most vehicles are produced are Germany, Spain,
France, the United Kingdom, Czech Republic and Italy.
Compared to other European economies, Italian automotive supply chain is made up of

a greater number of companies. Therefore, similarly to its economy in general, also
Italian automotive supply chain is characterized by the great importance and the
significant weight of small companies.
Starting from the ‘80s, the automotive sector has been affected by a reconfiguration of its
supply chain, characterized by a progressive de-verticalization, pushed by the need of
decreasing costs, and of increasing flexibility. This was the response to the technological
progress and to the change in demand (growth of emerging countries, diversification of
costumer needs and wants in mature markets).
This outsourcing process has strengthened the role of suppliers. More precisely, supply
chain has started to be organized in a hierarchical way, guided by first level suppliers
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(tiers 1), having a direct contact with the automotive companies (Original Equipment
Manufacturer, OEM); below, we find second level suppliers (tiers 2), specialized in the
production of specific components; tiers 3, which produce standardized components,
and so on, until we reach activities with a lower added value.
Although components-making has a significant role in the Italian automotive supply

chain, among the first 100 global supplier we can find only one Italian company (Magneti
Marelli). Italian components, in fact, belong to the tiers 2 category, that is, specialized
suppliers. These are firms that develop and produce a specific component or a
subsystem for a determined model of car or platform; they can include process
specialists (experts in the metal sheet stamping or in the diecasting, for instance), but
also specialists with further competences in manufacturing and assembly.
The fact of not being included in the tiers 1 means that Italian components-makers
cannot have a position of supply chain coordination. Nevertheless, specialized suppliers
present some characteristics that are worth focusing on:
- compared to tiers 1, specialized suppliers perform generally less complex

activities, but still characterized by a technological content that, when exploited
in the right way with investments in innovation, can lead to a significant gain in
competitiveness;
- while complex systems suppliers must build their plants close to the assembly
plant, due to transport costs and just in time obligations, specialized suppliers
are less influenced by these factors and have a relatively greater freedom in
choosing the location of their plants;
- for the reasons explained in the previous point, therefore, specialized suppliers
are able to remain in the territory where they have always been, maintaining
relationships and at the same time, enlarging their networks beyond national
borders, obtaining more efficient synergies and interactions. For example, several
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Italian components-makers have reacted to the reduction in national production,

by increasing their international links and diversifying their customers.
Intermediate manufacturing activities have a predominant role in Italy (24%), more than
in the other countries. Final manufacturing activities, differently, are more important in
Germany (40%) and in France (19%), while they have a relatively low weight in Italy,
where they account for the 12%.
Eurodies Italia S.r.l. is located exactly in this production segment (automotive sector,
intermediate manufacturing activities). It is a medium company, with around 160
employees and annual revenues of circa 25 million euro.
Since prototypes are mainly used for testing the final product, it may be thought that the
role of Eurodies will be less and less important in the future, with the advent of powerful
simulation technologies. On the contrary, in the last years, the demand of prototypes by
the OEMs has shown a stable increase.
There are multiple reasons: firstly, the credibility that Eurodies has gained in its sector,
increasing stably its productive capacity and its technological level during the years (for
example, with the purchase of two new latest generation presses in 2015 and 2016), in
order to be able to satisfy more costumers and satisfy them better, with higher and higher
quality products.
More importantly, carmakers have the need to face an increasing segmentation of

demand: more differentiated demand means more models, and more models mean a
greater number of prototypes needed for crash tests and validation. In addition, the end
of financial crisis that hit the entire world in the last decade caused the largest OEMs to
come out with many new models at the same time, in order to try to recover from the
years of crisis. These reasons make prototype demand for Eurodies increase
exponentially in the last 3-4 years.
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The increase in productive capacity and in the experience and competence of employees
and operators has allowed Eurodies to accept also some small series order, that is, orders
of some thousands (or tens of thousands) units that last some years and guarantee the
company a safe and continuous cash flow. This small series are usually components of
particular sport-premium models, produced in very low volumes.
In any case, the company’s core business is still prototype production: that is what
guarantees the highest profits. The obligations of Eurodies towards its customers do not
end at the moment of delivery, but may continue subsequently: in some cases, they
cooperate with the OEM in the series production industrial phase, for example
supplying them the CAD models of the dies. The dies, even after prototype production
has ended, are kept in Eurodies’ warehouse for a certain number of years: they are
property of the customer, who can take them at any time. This request of keeping the
dies available for such a long period of time (it could even be more than 10 years) is
explained by two reasons:
1) the costumer could, in the future, launch a new version of the same model that
was produced using those dies. In this case, the dies can be reutilized after a
simple milling operation;
2) the costumer could need Eurodies to produce series components for a certain
period of time, for different reasons. For example, if the series dies owned by the
OEM break down, the carmaker may ask Eurodies to integrate their series
production until the dies are fixed.
The next chapter analyzes in detail the industrial processes that Eurodies utilize to
supply its costumers with high quality products in a relatively short time.
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Chapter 2
Industrial and production processes

in Eurodies Italia
With reference to Figure 1 and Figure 2, which show the activity diagram, the entire
process performed by Eurodies in order to produce a certain amount of components,
from the moment in which the order is received to the delivery, is now presented and
described. Subsequently, each phase is explained in greater details, with a technical
description of the process when needed.
The industrial process for the realization of a prototype bodywork component starts
with the delivery, by the costumer company, of the CAD model of the requested piece.
Eurodies Italia’s engineers, starting from such model, derive the models of mold and
counter-mold, more commonly called die and punch (or generally, dies). Such dies will
be mounted on the presses for the sheet metal working operations, such as drawing,
flanging, etc.. The Computer Aided Design software used for this activity is Catia by
Dassault Systèmes.
Before actually building the dies, the model needs to be validated with a simulation. An
engineer specialized in simulations uploads the CAD models of die and punch on a
software, which simulates the drawing process with a Finite Element Method (FEM)
analysis. The software is called Autoform. If the simulation does not highlight particular
critical issues, the models of the dies are approved and sent to the CAM department,
where the toolpaths for the milling machines are studied and defined.
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Figure 1: Activity diagram of industrial processes in Eurodies (first part)
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CHAPTER 2: INDUSTRIAL AND PRODUCTION PROCESSES IN EURODIES ITALIA
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Figure 2: Activity diagram of industrial processes in Eurodies (second part)
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Dies are built in polystyrene, utilizing a CNC 5-axes milling machine. The polystyrene
dies are then sent to a foundry that, with an expendable-mold casting process,
transforms the polystyrene shape in the permanent cast iron tool. The cast iron used for
this operation is not high quality, since in this case the priority is to keep costs low, rather
than make a very durable die set.
The rough cast iron dies are delivered from the foundry to the Avigliana plant of
Eurodies, where they are worked by different CNC milling machines. The first operation
is called spianatura (flattening) and it is necessary to make the bottom of both die and
punch perfectly flat, in order to obtain a flat surface on which the dies can be laid for
subsequent operations. This operation is often outsourced to third companies, since it a
very costly one in terms of machine-hours, but it is not particularly complex. The
flattened dies are then delivered back to Eurodies, where several large milling machines
continue their construction. Such milling machines have different levels of power and
precision: for the first roughing a powerful, yet less accurate machine is utilized; for the
subsequent pre-finishing and finishing the choice falls upon more precise machines
(usually the newest), which guarantee better dimensional tolerances.
Finally, die and punch are finished off by hand (with files and sandpaper) by specialized
operators, the so-called aggiustatori.
Once the tools are ready (tools, or tooling, is the generic term for the dies), the punch is
transported to the metal carpentry area, where the so-called pallet is built. In this context,
the pallet is a support for the semifinished piece, on which the component will be laid
after drawing, for the laser trimming operations. The construction of the pallet follows
this procedure: the punch is laid on the floor or on a large metal plate; the carpenters
build a support made up of different iron rods, cut of the appropriate length, so that the
geometry of the component is followed. The carpenters, then, lay the upside-down pallet
on the punch, applying molten resin on the parts where the support touches the punch.
When the resin dries, the result is the “pallet”, a support that perfectly follows the
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geometry of the punch, and therefore of the semifinished component. Figure 3, below,
shows a finished pallet, ready to be transported to the 3D laser area, in order to be used
for the laser roughing or laser finishing operation.
Figure 3: A so-called “pallet” (support for the semifinished component)
In the subsequent phase, die and punch are mounted on a hydraulic press, which will
be used for the drawing operation. Nevertheless, before undergoing the drawing process
in the press, the metal sheet must be trimmed by the two-dimensional laser to obtain the
appropriate shape, determined in order to avoid possible wrinkles and defects. The
rectangular blanks of metal sheet are cut by the laser machine with two degrees of
freedom (plane movement), and the positioning of the metal sheet in such machine is
performed automatically with a suction cup manipulator and comb manipulator.
The shaped metal sheet that is the result of such operation is called blank outline or “icon”.
As was anticipated, while the 2D laser is cutting the blanks according to the appropriate
blank outline, the operators perform the operation of dies mounting. The heavy tools are
transported with an overhead crane and positioned on a sliding plate, that moves them
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under the press, as shown in Figure 4. Some areas of such photograph, showing finished
or semifinished parts, have been blurred due to industrial secret reasons.
Figure 4: Mounting of die and punch on the hydraulic press
As it was said above, the drawing operation is performed in a hydraulic press: since the
dies built at a prototype level are not perfect (due to the very short time obligations
required by the costumer), it is sometimes necessary to use some “empirical solution” to
allow the material to flow properly between the dies in the critical parts. For example,
pieces of nylon are added in those points, as well as lubricants such as oil or fat.
The blankholder is often not perfectly flat, and it lies on the “candles” (hydraulic
actuators located in the lower part of the press) in an irregular fashion. In such a
situation, specialized operators realize the problem during the phase called dies tuning –
the first tryout of the dies after they are mounted on the press – and correct the issue
inserting one or more shims between the candles and the blankholder. Figure 5 shows
such “empirical solution”: since the blankholder bottom is not perfectly flat and
therefore the force is not equally distributed, the operators specialized in dies tuning
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have inserted small portions of metal sheet between the blankholder itself and the
candles, in order to even out the holding force during drawing.
Figure 5: Shims inserted between “candles” and blankholder
After the dies tuning, the actual production phase begins. The activity diagram of such
phase can be seen in Figure 7: the blanks are cut by the 2D laser, according to the
appropriate blank outline and are transported into the presses area, where they undergo
the first press operation, that is, drawing.
After the drawing operation, the semifinished items are moved to the 3D laser area and
laid on the pallet. Here, 5-axes CNC robots cut the metal sheet according to the
“laserpaths” designed by the engineers of the laser office, obtaining the final measures
of the piece and creating slots and holes. Such operation is shown in Figure 6, where the
geometry of the piece has been concealed by blurring, due to industrial secret reasons.
Looking at such photograph, the function of the so-called pallet can be seen and
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understood: it is necessary to hold the piece in the correct position with minim
dimensional tolerances, so that the laser can obtain an almost perfect final geometry.
Figure 6: 3D laser trimming operation
Following the activity diagram, after drawing a decision node can be seen. In fact, for
very simple pieces, the drawing operation is enough to obtain the final geometry, with
just a finishing laser trim: in this case, the first and only press operation is called “dry
drawing” (imbutitura a secco), and it is performed without blankholder. For components
with a more complex geometry, other press operations become necessary. For example,
a redrawing may be needed (an operation that “fixes” the precise dimensions and the
final geometry of the component, often performed on the same dies used for the
drawing, with different tool pressions); or one or more flanging operations, needed to
obtain the areas of the components that have a bending angle greater than 90 degrees.
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Figure 7: Activity diagram of the prototype component production phase
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With reference to the same figure, looking at the activity diagram it can be noted that
among press operation it is almost always necessary to perform a 3D laser trim.
Summing up, a component that is “averagely complex” to produce needs a sequence of
operations similar to the following: blank outline cut on the 2D laser, drawing, 3D laser
roughing trim, redrawing, flanging, 3D laser finishing trim.
This sequence is not the same applied to all the components that are produced by
Eurodies, since prototypes are always new and different by definitions, and working
cycles show important variations. Nevertheless, such sequence is well representative of
the average cycle adopted in the company, and therefore it will be considered as the
“standard cycle” in the rest of this Thesis work.
Finally, the prototype components are manually adjusted and finished by specialized
responsibles, called “metal sheet beaters” (battilastra): the final result is a component that
perfectly satisfies the requested dimensional and geometric tolerances, produced in a
really short time at a relatively low cost. The respect of tolerances and the precision of
dimensions are verified randomly in the testing area: these data are not only used by
Eurodies to internally check the quality of their production, but are also requested by
the costumer companies, in order to have a numerical proof of the quality of the
components that they are about to pay and have delivered.
2.1 Modeling of dies
Once the CAD models of the commissioned pieces are received, the CAD department
starts to hypothesize which operations will be needed to produce the component. All the
operations introduced in the last section are considered, both executed by a machine
(press or laser) and manual ones. Clearly, in the prototype field the objective is to keep
costs as low as possible; therefore, in this design phase the engineers try to obtain the
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final piece with the lowest number of operations. In fact, more press operations mean
more dies to be produced, which have an extremely high cost, and more laser operations
means a longer cycle time and more machine-hours and man-hours.
When the production cycle has been defined, the dies are designed on the software Catia,
by offsetting the surface of the component, and adding the necessary material to support
such surface during the drawing.
At the same time, the engineers decide which material should be used for the dies,
choosing among:
- cast iron, the most common material, more costly but durable
- steel, chosen for small dies, its advantage is that it is only machined in the milling
machines, without having to wait for the foundry to provide the casting
- resin, much cheaper but not durable, it is used when the order is of few pieces
2.2 Simulation of drawing
As Fan et al. (2006) explain in their paper, design methods for sheet metal forming have
always been based on trial-and-error. Nevertheless, because of the recent demand for
higher precision and reliability in components produced with this process, traditional
empirical methods have become inadequate to provide a solution. Therefore, the Finite
Element Method (FEM) has started to be gradually adopted by companies that operate
in this sector, in oder to forecast the formability of sheet metal during drawing. The
complex physical mechanisms involved in the sheet metal working processes create a
high order non-linear problem. Nonlinearity is caused both by contact and friction, and
by the large displacement and important deformation. In addition, the problem is made
even harder to be solved analytically, because of several material behaviours that show
non-linearity, such as plasticity, visco-plasticity and damage. “Therefore, numerical
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techniques, such as the finite element method (FEM), are usually used to deal with this
kind of problem. FEM can provide not only the final results, but also the information of
intermediate steps, like the distributions of displacement, stress, strain and other internal
variables. Due to its versatility, FEM has been widely used in various fields. For two-
dimensional studies of sheet forming processes, various finite element analyses have
been performed by the implicit method applying the direct matrix solver. The implicit
method is usually efficient in providing an accurate solution in simple cases. Due to the
success in applying the two-dimensional FEM, some attempts have been made to extend
the implicit method to solve three-dimensional problems” (Fan, et al., 2006).
Eurodies decided to make use of one of these softwares that solve numerically three-
dimensional problems in sheet metal forming simulations. However, the engineers
know perfectly that the results of such simulations are far from having a high accuracy,
and will rarely predict the actual behaviour of the blank during drawing.
Nevertheless, after the design of the dies is concluded on Catia, the software Autoform
allows to simulate the operations that will be performed during the production phase. If
the results of the simulation do not highlight critical issues, the design of the dies is
approved, and the project moves on. Otherwise, if there are critical issues, the design of
the dies is modified, or the production cycle is changed.
2.3 Casting process
As anticipated, the dies used for presses operations (drawing, redrawing, flanging) are
manufactured starting from a cast iron shape, created in an expendable-mold casting
process.
Groover (2010), in his book about manufacturing processes, explains that “casting is a
process in which molten metal flows by gravity or other force into a mold where it
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solidifies in the shape of the mold cavity”. The word casting is used both to indicate the
process, and for the resulting part.
Casting can be considered one of the most versatile manufacturing processes, due to the
great number of shape casting methods available. As every production process, casting
has both advantages and disadvantages. The most significant advantages are:
- casting allows to obtain complex geometries, both external and internal, that
would be very difficult to create with machining techniques
- several of the casting methods are “capable of producing parts to net shape. No
further manufacturing operations are required to achieve the required geometry
and dimensions of the parts. Other casting processes are near net shape, for
which some additional shape processing is required (usually machining) in order
to achieve accurate dimensions and details” (Groover, 2010)
- casting processes can also produce parts of very large dimensions
- material versatility. Basically any metal that can be molten to liquid state could
be used for casting.
Disadvantages are multiple and diverse: poor mechanical properties, porosity, bad
precision in dimensional tolerances and poor surface finish; as well as safety hazards for
the operators that have to manipulate hot molten metals.
Casting processes can be subdivided into two categories, depending on the type of mold
that is utilized: expendable mold and permanent mold. Expendable molds are made of
sand or plaster, mixed with some binders in order to keep their form. When the casting
is solidified and must be extracted, expendable molds have to be destroyed to remove
the part from the interior.
The most utilized typology of expendable mold process is sand casting. In this method,
molten metal is poured into a sand mold, that is destroyed to extract the casting when
the metal has hardened.
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Groover (Groover, 2010) also introduces some terminology: the mold “is made of two
halves: cope and drag. The cope is the upper half of the mold, and the drag is the bottom
half. These two mold parts are contained in a box, called a flask. In sand casting (and
other expendable-mold processes) the mold cavity is formed by means of a pattern,
which is made of wood, metal, plastic, or other material and has the shape of the part to
be cast”. As said above, the pattern used for the production of dies castings in Eurodies
Italia are made of polystyrene. Thanks to the binder, after packing sand around the
pattern and removing the pattern from the mold, the sand maintains its form and creates
a cavity. The pattern is almost always oversized, because of the phenomenon of
shrinkage of metal, as it solidifies.
2.4 Milling process
When the castings of the dies are delivered back to Eurodies, from the foundry, the
longest and most expensive process in the production of the tools begins: milling.
As Groover (2010) explains, in milling, a rotating tool with multiple cutting edges is fed
slowly across the work material to generate a plane or curved surface. Unlike drilling
and other machining operation, the feed motion has a direction that is perpendicular to
the axis of the tool. Such tool is called a milling cutter and the cutting edges are called
teeth. Milling is defined as an “interrupted cutting” process, since the teeth of the cutting
tool enter and exit the workpiece at each revolution. Such discontinuous cutting creates
cyclical impacts, causing physical and thermal shock at every rotation: for this reason,
the geometry of the milling cutter and its material must be chosen keeping in mind these
demanding conditions.
There are two types of milling: periphery milling and face milling. The next paragraph
focuses on the latter, since it is the one used in the production of dies. “In face milling,
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the axis of the cutter is perpendicular to the surface being milled, and machining is
performed by cutting edges on both the end and outside periphery of the cutter. As in
peripheral milling, various forms of face milling exist: (a) conventional face milling, in
which the diameter of the cutter is greater than the workpart width, so the cutter
overhangs the work on both sides; (b) partial face milling, where the cutter overhangs
the work on only one side; (c) end milling, in which the cutter diameter is less than the
work width, so a slot is cut into the part; (d) profile milling, a form of end milling in
which the outside periphery of a flat part is cut; (e) pocket milling, another form of end
milling used to mill shallow pockets into flat parts; and (f) surface contouring, in which
a ball-nose cutter (rather than square-end cutter) is fed back and forth across the work
along a curvilinear path at close intervals to create a three-dimensional surface form”
(Groover, 2010). This kind of curvilinear control for the motion of milling cutter is used
also to machine the internal cavities of molds and dies: in this case, the operation is called
die sinking.
Milling machines generally have a rotating spindle, on which the cutting tool is
mounted, and flat surface on which the workpart is positioned and fastened. There are
obviously many subcategories of milling machines, which can be classified into the
following types: knee-and-column, bed type, planer type, tracer mills, and CNC milling
machines. All the machines that are present in Eurodies Italia Srl belong to the fifth
typology. Computer numerical control milling machines are milling machines in which
the cutter path is controlled by alphanumerical data rather than a physical template.
They are especially suited to profile milling, pocket milling, surface contouring, and die
sinking operations, in which two or three axes of the worktable must be simultaneously
controlled to achieve the required cutter path.
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2.5 Drawing process
Once the dies are ready, after milling and manual adjustment, they are mounted on the
press and “tuned” by specialized operators. Subsequently, the first press operation can
be performed on the metal blank: drawing.
Drawing is a sheet metal forming process used to make cup-shaped or other complex
concave parts. It is performed by pushing a metal sheet into the opening of a die with a
punch, while the blank is generally held in its position by a part of the die, called
blankholder.
The drawing process will be now explained shortly, introducing the basic drawing
operation, that is, drawing of a cup shaped part. “A blank of diameter Db is drawn into
a die cavity by means of a punch with diameter Dp. The punch and die must have corner
radii, given by Rp and Rd. If the punch and die were to have sharp corners (Rp and Rd =
0), a hole-punching operation (and not a very good one) would be accomplished rather
than a drawing operation. The sides of the punch and die are separated by a clearance c.
This clearance in drawing is about 10% greater than the stock thickness:
c = 1.1 t
The punch applies a downward force F to accomplish the deformation of the metal, and
a downward holding force Fh is applied by the blankholder. As the punch proceeds
downward toward its final bottom position, the work experiences a complex sequence
of stresses and strains as it is gradually formed into the shape defined by the punch and
die cavity” (Groover, 2010). The process starts when the punch hits the blank and starts
to push it downwards, performing a bending operation. The sheet is bent around the
corners of the dies, while the outside part of the blank moves towards the center. This
movement, though, is not excessive: the blankholder keeps the metal sheet flat and does
not allow a too large flow towards the center. As the punch keeps moving, the portion
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of metal that has been bent over the die corner is subject to a straightening action. In fact,
the metal at the bottom of the piece has been pushed downwards, but the metal that has
been bent must be straightened in order to be pulled into the clearance. While this
happens, the metal that is flowing down to form the walls of the cylinder (or cup) must
be replaced by the material that was held between die and blankholder: such material is
drawn towards the cavity of the die, and this movement gives the name to the drawing
process.
As it was just explained, the metal must flow between blankholder and the outer
perimeter of the die: it is clear that friction between the sheet metal blank and the dies,
in this context, must be overcome. At first, static friction prevents the metal to move,
until it begins to slide; subsequently, dynamic friction slows down its flowing
movement. The two parameters that govern the process are such friction and the
blankholder holding force: both can be modified externally, since the friction can be
reduced applying lubricants, and the blankholder force is a machine parameter that can
be set on the press computer.
Not only friction, but also compression occurs in the outside perimeter of the metal sheet.
As the material in this part of the blank is pulled toward the center, the outer edge
becomes smaller. Nevertheless, the volume is constant: for this reason, the metal
becomes thicker in the edge area. If the blankholder force is not enough, this may result
in wrinkling, one of the most common defects that occur in the drawing process.
Since the wrinkles cannot be removed once they are present on a workpiece, this
blankholder force is seen as a critical factor: if it is too low, wrinkling occurs; if, on the
contrary, it is too large, the metal cannot flow toward the center and it can break or
stretch. The specialized operators of Eurodies, when they determine the correct
blankholder pressure, have to find a balance between these factors.
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2.6 Redrawing process
Redrawing, as the name suggests, is a second drawing operation. It is needed for

workpieces of large dimensions and complex geometry, and it allows to obtain the
proper final geometry when the drawing operation alone is not sufficient. It is usually
performed using the same dies used for the drawing, but often the blankholder is not
utilized. As it was explained in a previous section, a drawing performed without
blankholder is defined as “dry drawing”.
The redrawing process is not only needed to fix the final geometry and prevent the
springback, but it is sometimes useful to stamp some particulars that were not possible
during the drawing. For example, the area around slot and holes is stamped in the
redrawing, because such holes and slots are not yet present when the part is drawn, since
they are cut by the 3D laser in a subsequent operation.
2.7 Flanging process
Flanging is a metal sheet forming operation in which a portion of a sheet or of a

semifinished product is bent along a straight or curved line, of an angle equal or greater
than 90 degrees. If the angle were less than 90 degrees, flanging would not be necessary,
since the drawing or redrawing dies are capable of producing such angles. Eurodies
Italia performs flanging on components that, by design, need an L-shaped profile on
some sides, such as front fenders or roofs.
Essentially, flanging is a bending operation. Groover (2010), in his book about

manufacturing, defines bending, in sheet-metalwork, “as the straining of the metal
around a straight (or curved) axis. During the bending operation, the metal on the inside
of the neutral plane is compressed, while the metal on the outside of the neutral plane is
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stretched. The metal is plastically deformed so that the bend takes a permanent set upon
removal of the stresses that caused it”. Such process does not modify the thickness of the
blank, but only the direction of its axis in certain parts. Similarly to drawing, also
bending and flanging are performed on an industrial press, with punch and die. The two
common bending methods and associated tooling are V-bending, performed with a V-
die; and edge bending, performed with a wiping die. Bending operations made in
Eurodies Italia S.r.l. are all of the second type: edge bending involves cantilever loading
of the sheet metal. A tool called pressure pad is utilized to hold the workpiece on the
die, while the punch pushes the part to bend around the corner of the die itself. Particular
attention must be paid to the phenomenon called springback: not all the energy
transmitted from the punch to the workpiece is used for plastic deformation, a part of
such energy remains stored into the component as elastic energy, causing the bent
portion of the blank to recover partially towards its original shape once the punch moves
back upward and releases the workpiece. The springback, therefore, is defined as the
“increase in included angle of the bent part relative to the included angle of the forming
tool after the tool is removed. This is expressed as:
𝛼𝛼 ′ − 𝛼𝛼𝑡𝑡′
𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆 =
𝛼𝛼𝑡𝑡′
where SB = springback; a’ = included angle of the sheet-metal part, degrees; and a’t =
included angle of the bending tool, degrees” (Groover, 2010). The increase in bending
angle is not the only the only effect caused by springback: another, less visible, effect is
the increase in the bend radius, still caused by elastic recovery.
Keeping in mind that the springback is proportional to Young modulus E and to the
yield strength Y of the material, it can be tried to compensate for such phenomenon in
different ways. The most used methods are overbending and bottoming. The former
consists in making the bending angle of dies and punch smaller than the nominal angles
of the final component, so that when the springback occurs, the angle goes back to its
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specified value. The latter, bottoming, is performed squeezing the workpiece in the bend
area, plastically deforming it and “fixing” the geometry.
2.8 Description of industrial press
Nearly all of the preceding pressworking operations are performed with conventional
punch-and-die tooling. The tooling is referred to as a die. It is custom-designed for the
particular part to be produced. Such tools (punch and die) are mounted on a machine
called press.
As Groover (2010) describes, a press used for sheet metalworking is a machine tool with
a stationary bed and a powered ram (or slide) that can be driven toward and away from
the bed to perform various cutting and forming operations. The relative positions of the
bed and ram are established by the frame, and the ram is driven by mechanical or
hydraulic power. When a die is mounted in the press, the punch holder is attached to
the ram, and the die holder is attached to a bolster plate of the press bed.
Cattell (2008), in his paper about industrial presses, explains that presses fall into four
main categories: mechanical, hydraulic, servo, and pneumatic. Each category derives its
name from the drive source that generates the pressure (force) on the die to form the
finished stamping. Each category can be further divided into one of two different frame
designs: straight-side or C-frame. Each type of press can have single or double-slide
(ram) connections. Straight-side presses have two sides and four to eight guideways for
the slide. This reduces the deflection and enables them to handle off-center loads better.
Mechanical and hydraulic presses, the two typologies present in Eurodies Italia’s
Avigliana plant, are now described in greater detail.
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Mechanical presses can be subdivided by the type of drive transmission that applies
force on the punch: flywheel, single-geared, double-geared, double-action, and
eccentric-geared.
“All are powered by an electric motor that drives a large flywheel. The flywheel stores
kinetic energy, which is released through various drive types. For each 360-degree cycle
of the press, or stroke, energy in the flywheel is consumed as the part is made in the die.
This causes the flywheel to slow, usually between 10 and 15 percent. The electric motor
then restores this lost energy back into the flywheel on the upstroke of the press. The
press is then ready for the next cycle” (Cattell, 2008). To stop and start the press, you use
an electronic control to a clutch and brake, which in turn disengages the flywheel to the
press drive. Most clutches and brakes are spring-applied and have either pneumatic or
hydraulic releases. The stopping time of the clutch and brake is critical in determining
both the speed that the press can be run and the safety of the operator and die.
Hydraulic presses have advanced dramatically over the years with new technologies
and improvements in electronics and valves. They are especially suitable for deep-draw
applications, because they can apply full tonnage over the complete length of the stroke.
In addition, the velocity that the slide travels as it closes the die can be programmed, as
well as the fast return of the punch. The stroke can be programmed to any distance
needed, thus achieving the maximum SPM available with the pump design. A hydraulic
press is powered by a hydraulic pump, pumping oil into a hydraulic cylinder or
cylinders that drive the slide down. Pressure can be preset, and once achieved, a valve
can activate pressure reversal, so no overload can occur. With this press design and its
applications, the die tends to guide the press, so the guiding systems do not have to be
as accurate as with a progressive-die mechanical press. Hydraulic press production
speeds normally are lower than those achieved with a mechanical press. These presses
are available with one or more independently operated slides, called single action (single
slide), double action (two slides), and so on. Double-action presses are useful in deep
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drawing operations where it is required to separately control the punch force and the
blankholder force.
Eurodies Italia, in the Avigliana plant, owns around 20 presses, 6 of which of very large
dimensions. Only one of these six is a mechanical press, all the others are hydraulic
presses. Four of the 6 machines of large dimensions are latest-generation presses built
by the company Gigant Industries: two Gigant machines similar to the ones present in
Eurodies are shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8: Hydraulic presses built by Gigant Industries
2.9 3D Laser trimming process
After the blank has undergone the drawing process on the press, the semifinished
prototype is transported to the 3D laser area and clamped on the pallet, as shown in
Figure 6 at the beginning of this chapter. Here, the powerful laser robots perform on the
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piece the roughing trim or the finishing trim, cutting the unnecessary portions of
material, and creating holes and slots. Such machine is an anthropomorphic robot arm
with a laser cutter mounted on the tip: this tool generates a powerful beam of light,
capable of cutting steel and aluminium.
The generation of the laser beam involves stimulating a lasing material by electrical
discharges or lamps within a closed container. As the lasing material is stimulated, the
beam is reflected internally by means of a partial mirror, until it achieves sufficient
energy to escape as a stream of monochromatic coherent light. Mirrors or fiber optics are
typically used to direct the coherent light to a lens, which focuses the light at the work
zone. The narrowest part of the focused beam is generally less than 0.32 mm in diameter.
Depending upon material thickness, kerf widths as small as 0.10 mm are possible. In
order to be able to start cutting from somewhere other than the edge, a pierce is done
before every cut. Piercing usually involves a high-power pulsed laser beam which
slowly makes a hole in the material, taking around 5–15 seconds for 13 mm stainless
steel, for example.
The parallel rays of coherent light from the laser source often fall in the range between
1.5–2.0 mm in diameter. This beam is normally focused and intensified by a lens or a
mirror to a very small spot of about 0.025 mm to create a very intense laser beam. In
order to achieve the smoothest possible finish during contour cutting, the direction of
beam polarization must be rotated as it goes around the periphery of a contoured
workpiece. For sheet metal cutting, the focal length is usually 38–76 mm.
Advantages of laser cutting over mechanical cutting include easier workholding and
reduced contamination of workpiece (since there is no cutting edge which can become
contaminated by the material or contaminate the material). Precision may be better, since
the laser beam does not wear during the process. There is also a reduced chance of
warping the material that is being cut, as laser systems have a small heat-affected zone.
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Laser cutting for metals has the advantages over plasma cutting of being more precise
and using less energy when cutting sheet metal; however, most industrial lasers cannot
cut through the greater metal thickness that plasma can. Newer laser machines operating
at higher power (6000 watts, as contrasted with early laser cutting machines' 1500 watt
ratings) are approaching plasma machines in their ability to cut through thick materials,
but the capital cost of such machines is much higher than that of plasma cutting
machines capable of cutting thick materials like steel plate.
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Chapter 3
Company critical issues
The job performed by Eurodies Italia is extremely variable and difficult: it is difficult to
forecast the production trend, and there may be problems and mishaps that prevent the
plant from having a linear production.
The main reason for this is the type of product made by the company. The production
of prototypes makes the industrial phase much more complex, with respect to the series
production. This is proven also within Eurodies itself, which has also few orders of
“small series” components: these never show problems and it easy to forecast the trend
of production, the productivity of employees and the quantity of material waste.
On the contrary, the production of prototypes is characterized by an extremely variable

production rate, with high material waste, despite the great experience of the specialized
employees.
The problems that the company has to face have mainly two reasons: the type of
production (prototype-making) that causes great difficulties in sequencing and
scheduling of orders, and the dimensional growth that Eurodies has had in the last years.
The fact that the company has grown from around 40 to around 160 employees, without
a real company reorganization and a change of work methodologies and of information
transfer, created many inefficiencies.
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It may also be thought that the second reason is somehow linked to the first: the
continuous necessity to focus on production did not allow Eurodies to utilize time and
resources for a work methodologies reorganization.
Another problem shown by Italian companies of this sector is the separation between
design phase and production phase. When the design of the dies is approved by the
responsible person, his role is over, and the designer does not receive any feedback on
possible problems caused by the dies during production. Furthermore, press operators
do not receive the results of the simulation that should theoretically indicate which zones
of the piece are the most critical.
The lack of information flow in both directions leads to a lack of continuous learning by
the designer who, without receiving feedback on his work, cannot modify his work
methodology or make the simulation more reliable. For the operators, the lack of
information about the results of the simulation makes the job harder, since they do not
know what to expect from the first press hit.
A problem that should be considered is the absence of data collection during production.
The only relevant data, in Eurodies Italia, is the quantity of pieces produced at the end
of the shift. No data is collected about the exact quantity of defectives or of material
waste. No information is stored, about the main problems that the operators had to face
during the shift: such information, if available, would be useful to understand how to
increase the effectiveness of the dies for the next order of a similar component. Recently,
Eurodies has understood the importance of creating statistics on errors and defectives
that are detected in the production phase, in order to be able, among others, to look for
correlation between the errors themselves and the utilized material or the shape of
certain pieces.
They are considering ways to collect this information without interrupting or slowing
down the operators’ work, especially the ones working at the presses. It is not an easy
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task, because there is no availability of a reliable and affordable technology to

automatically detect defects.
A less efficient solution would be the introduction of papers to be filled by the operators,
indicating the number of pieces produced correctly, the number of defectives, the reason
of the defects and the type and location of the defect on the piece. This solution would
be very easy to implement, but it would then require an employee to manually copy
such information to the computer database. It was thought, therefore, to adopt a tablet
located next to the machine, instead of the papers to be filled. The tablet would be
connected to the company network and would automatically transfer information to the
database. This second solution looks clearly more efficient, and the implementation of
tablets connected to the network is surely not difficult or particularly expensive.
Another problem that Eurodies Italia must face is the calculation of the order profit. As
of now, decisions about the typology of material to be used, about the icon shape (and
therefore the nesting and the quantity of material that is necessary) are taken directly
during production by the manufacturing responsible. This, together with the lack of
information about the man-hours spent by the single operator on the single order, leads
to the impossibility of a systematic forecast of the order profit. Decisions about offers to
be made to costumers are therefore taken by the top management, based on their
personal experience, without precise information on the historical profitability of similar
components. Such information would allow Eurodies to be more competitive on the
market, knowing in advance whether to accept an order or not – or whether to increase
the offer.
Let us now consider the main general issues that Eurodies Italia wants to improve: the
low productivity. It is possible to identify three main causes of the reduction of average
productivity in the company:
- Disorganization of the warehouse
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- Lack of scheduling
- Responsibility conflicts
The warehouse is filled with both raw material (sheet metal – steel and aluminium) of
various dimensions and thickness, and semifinished components. During the years, an
automatic method to track which and how many items enter and leave the warehouse
was not implemented. The stock inventory of the raw material is updated by the head
of the warehouse at least once a week, manually, on an Excel spreadsheet. Nevertheless,
between these updates, the position and quantity of material are changed, and this leads
to major inefficiencies due to the waste of time, which is spent looking for the right pallet
that contains the correct sheet metal. Even worse is the problem linked to the residual
quantity of raw material: if it is not updated correctly, the wrong information about the
amount of sheets that are available leads to errors on orders or to slowing down of the
production, due to the lack of material itself.
For the semifinished products, on the contrary, no information is stored anywhere, and
the position and quantity are remembered by heart by the forklift or press operators. It
is easy to imagine how this leads to several different problems: waste of time due to the
need of “looking for items”, transfer of wrong information among operators responsible
for one manufacturing phase and the ones responsible of the subsequent phase or, in
extreme case, the need to repeat production because some pieces have been lost.
In order to increase the productivity of the operators, it would be necessary to schedule

production in a structured way. As of now, scheduling is performed by the head of
production, without having any information coming from the other industrial divisions.
Furthermore, it is performed with a too short temporal horizon, often only daily. It may
happen, therefore, that the production of a component that had been programmed for
one day cannot be executed because the dies are not ready yet, and this causes a
modification of the production that had been forecasted for the 2D laser. Or else, for
example, the so-called pallet (support for the component when it is laser trimmed) is not
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ready to be utilized, but at the same time the press department is giving maximum
priority to the same component, uselessly. One of the reasons why scheduling is not
considered essential by Eurodies is the need for flexibility that the production of
prototypes requires. In fact, it often happens that the production program must be
modified because some order is taking longer than what had been forecasted (due to
errors, large number of defectives, or bad-quality pieces being produced). A simple
solution to this issue would be to perform a scheduling not daily, but weekly, leaving
some empty “temporal buffers”, that will be filled by the prolonging of problematic
orders. Collecting data and information about the necessary cycle time for every single
phase of manufacturing process, for every “type of product”, it would be then possible
to create a statistical database to make scheduling more and more efficient.
Programming on a weekly basis would allow automatic machinery (such as the 2D laser)
to work continuously, also at night, in a coordinated way.
Third and last factor that causes a reduction in productivity has to be identified in the
so-called responsibility conflicts. In Eurodies Italia, it is often not clear who should take
responsibility to perform a certain task. Different people of different department can
decide what a certain tool or machine should do, at the same time. This leads to conflicts
among employees, besides a non-structured production activity. It is not rare to see an
operator that receives instructions on what task he should perform by a supervisor, but
then the task is modified after a short time by a different supervisor. It is clear that a lot
of time is wasted by this change of task. A better circulation of information within the
departments could be a solution to this last issue (but not only to this one, since a good
circulation of information in a company is fundamental for increasing productivity and
product quality).
In the company, knowledge is linked to single people and often it is stored in files (like
Excel spreadsheets), accessible to only one or two people. This makes programming and
producing harder, when even only one of the “key employees” is missing. This problem
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is being addressed right now, when this Thesis is being written, with the implementation
of a management software, common to all the company’s departments, which will make
available to all employees all the needed information. This should, in the future, avoid
that the absence of certain key people determines a worse production flow.
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Chapter 4
Model
Since it is clear that the main plant of Eurodies Italia shows several inefficiencies and a
productivity that is definitely far from its optimum, during the research work that
preceded the writing of this Thesis, assumptions were made about possible ways of
increasing such productivity and reducing inefficiencies.
As usual, in such situations, modifications to the production process and to the plant, as
well as to the number of resources, need to be tested and validated with a simulation.
Simulation involves the building of a model that represents a real system or process, in
a computer-based environment. After setting the parameters of the system or process,
and after deciding a simulation time or some “end-of-simulation” conditions, the model
is run in order to observe the behavior of the system and to monitor some selected
variables. In the specific field of manufacturing simulation, staffing requirements,
processing equipment, material handling equipment, work-in-process, storage space,
floor plan design, and various policies and procedures can be altered in the model to
evaluate their impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. Users may test
any and all options, not just for their impact on the system, but to find the best
combination of operational characteristics to optimize performance and reduce costs
(FlexSim Software Products Inc, 2014).
Among the several commercial software programs that perform manufacturing

simulations, FlexSim (FlexSim Software Products, Inc.) was chosen to model and
simulate the production processes of Eurodies Italia. FlexSim is 3D simulation software
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designed for modeling processes. Processes include manufacturing, packaging,

warehousing, material handling, supply-chain, and many others. FlexSim is equipped
with a powerful array of tools that run the gamut from a ‘true-to-scale’ 3D display to a
comprehensive collection of statistical reports that can immediately shed light on any
aspect of performance in the process. FlexSim uses a four-step method to model any
given process system. First, the process’s CAD-based physical layout is created or
imported, and relevant processing objects are added to represent the process. Second,
the flow of the items that are going to be processed is designed using click-and-drag
connections - easy as defining the flow in a flow chart. Third, the user will detail the
objects with processing parameters such as process time, routing logic, conveyor speeds,
staff requirements, material handling options, and visualization options. Fourth, the
relevant evaluative metrics are defined using easy-to-use pick list options and wizards
(FlexSim Software Products Inc, 2014). Then the model is run, and the process comes to
life in virtual 3D.
In the following section our model of Eurodies production process is shown and
explained in detail.
4.1 Simplified model
Before presenting and explaining the actual model of Eurodies’ plant, a simplified model
with just one machine per typology is shown. In such a way, it is easier to describe the
parameters adopted and how the data about times and pieces were collected. With
reference to Figure 9, seven types of model objects can be identified:
1) Source
2) Queue
3) Processor
4) Sink
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5) Dispatcher
6) Operator
7) Transporter
Each of these objects is described in the next paragraphs, after a brief explanation of the
logical flow of the model.
Figure 9: Simplified model
Figure 9 shows the single-flow model, with only one machine per type. The raw material
(sheet metal) is generated from the source and stored in the sheet metal warehouse. It is
then loaded by the forklift and transported to the laser warehouse, which cuts it according
to the necessary icon shape. The 2D Laser stores the icons in the output laser queue, where
they wait to be moved to the press input one. Subsequently, the press performs the
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drawing operation, and the semifinished products are stored in the press output queue.
Finally, they are transported to the 3D laser, which concludes the process, by performing
the finishing trimming operation. Finished products are moved to the delivery truck,
which transports them out of the plant, to the sink. The model shows three more
elements: a forklift, used for moving material and products, four operators, who operate
the machines, and three dispatchers, who dynamically assign resources (operators and
transporters) to the machine or queue that requires them.
In the following sections, each object is shown, and the parameters that characterize it
are described.
4.1.1 Source and sink
A source is the object that generates items: in our case, it generates raw material (metal
sheet blanks). Figure 10 shows the properties tab of a source. The Arrival Style can be
parametrized with an inter-arrival time, deterministic or statistically distributed, or with
an arrival schedule. In our model, the latter was chosen, because it allows to set the
quantity per arrival, creating batches.
Figure 10: Source properties
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The batch size was chosen to be 20 pieces, since several months of observations in the
plant showed that such a quantity is a good statistical representation of the number of
pieces that OEMs ask Eurodies Italia to supply, in their first order.
A sink is simply the object that destroys items: it is the last step of every model and it is
sometimes considered when looking at simulation statistics, as the object where some
data such as “output per hour” are computed.
4.1.2 Queue
A queue is the model object where items wait to be transported or processed. The
maximum number of items that a queue can contain may be set in the properties, as well
as the output logic (FIFO – First In First Out, or LIFO – Last In First Out), as Figure 11
shows.
Figure 11: Queue properties
As anticipated in the previous paragraph, the batch size is set to 20, for the entire model.
The option “Flush content between batches” means that the queue will not accept new
items until the current batch has moved out.
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Figure 12: Transporter properties
4.1.3 Transporter
A transporter object is the generalization of a simple forklift. It is used to move items

from a queue to another one, in a more realistic way than the “instantaneous”
movements without transporter. The properties tab of a Transporter can be seen in
Figure 12: acceleration and maximum speed are the most important parameters to be set.
Since the forklifts in Eurodies Italia can reach a maximum speed of 6 km/h, the
corresponding parameter in the model has been set to the equivalent speed in meters
per minute (100 m/min).
The loading and unloading times have been parametrized according to the “Batch
processing” logic, that is, the loading time is applied once to the batch, instead of once
per item. In order to assign a value to this loading/unloading times, a statistical
distribution was considered more significant than a deterministic value. Several time
measurements were performed in the plant, timing the loading and unloading operation
of several pallets by different forklifts. The resulting times were interpolated empirically
on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, obtaining a beta distribution with the following
parameters:
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beta(0.3, 1, 3, 8)
that is, a = 0.3, b = 1, α = 3 and β = 8. The plot of such distribution can be seen below, in
Figure 13.
Figure 13: Distribution of times for forklift loading/unloading
4.1.4 Operator
In our model, operators are utilized to operate presses and 3D lasers. Observations in
the plant showed that, normally, two operators are present next to the machines for the
production of prototypes. Therefore, in the Processors’ properties, as shown below in a
subsequent paragraph, the parameter “Use operators for process/setup: number of
operators” was set to 2. Figure 14 shows, on the left and center, an Operator object and
its properties tab, and, on the right, the MTTR/MTBF parameters that were used to
model the “coffee breaks”.
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Figure 14: Operator properties and MTBF for operators' breaks
During the observation period in the plant, it was noticed that operators do not have a
fixed break time, but they are free to have a coffee break several times per shift. To add
this behaviour to the model, the function MTTR/MTBF (Mean Time Through
Repair/Mean Time Between Failures) was utilized, where the “failure” is the break, and
the “repair time” is the duration of the break itself. In order to avoid the infinite of the
normal distribution, the beta distribution was chosen also in this case, with a mean of 90
minutes between breaks. Furthermore, in order to have a symmetric curve, the
parameters alpha and beta had to be set equal to each other:
beta(70, 110, 5, 5)
that is, a = 70, b = 110, α = 5 and β = 5. Figure 15, below, shows the plot of such
distribution. Concerning the MTTR, that is, the break duration, a uniform distribution
between 5 and 8 minutes was considered appropriate to parametrize the real behaviour
of the operators.
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Figure 15: Time distribution of operators' breaks (MTBF)
4.1.5 Dispatcher
A dispatcher is the object that assigns operators and transporters to the different tasks.
A dispatcher, together with its properties tab, can be seen in Figure 16. Its parameters
are not particularly interesting or difficult to determine.
Figure 16: Dispatcher properties
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4.1.6 Processors
A processor is the model object that perform a manufacturing operation on an item. The
most important parameters for such objects are process time and set-up time. In this
paragraph, the three types of working centers present in our model will be considered:
2D laser, press and 3D laser. The time measurements that were performed in the plant,
together with the statistical calculation that led to determination of the appropriate
distribution for process and set-up times.
a) 2D Laser
The two-dimensional laser that is present in Eurodies Italia for icon cutting is a modern
automatic machine (with automatic warehouse), built by Prima Industrie: it is a “flexible,
user-friendly and compact flat CO2 laser cutting machine with automatic management
of materials and thicknesses” (Prima Power, 2017). The machine computer traces and
stores the processing times of every single piece, making it easy to download them and
perform statistical calculations. Figure 17 shows a screenshot of the software that
manages the operativity of 2D Laser and automatic warehouse: looking at the rightmost
column, it is clear that the difference between the “time worked” of two subsequent rows
is equal to the cycle time for cutting that item.
Since the number of time data available in this situation was not very large, it was
decided to use the Flexsim statistical tool called “continuous empirical distribution”,
which interpolates classes of data (provided in a table as histogram data) and returns as
output a number continuously distributed between the lower and upper limit of each
class, according to the percentage probability in the other column of the table. The data
that were inserted in the Flexsim’s global table for 2D Laser times are shown in Figure
18, as well as the resulting distribution (plotted on Microsoft Excel).
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Figure 17: 2D Laser software (processing times)
Figure 18: Empirical distribution resulting from 2D Laser times
Since the Primapower PLATINO® is fully automated and can generally work without
an operator, also during the night, in our model’s “Laser 2D” processor properties, no
operator is required.
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b) Press
More than 20 presses are present in Eurodies Italia’s plant in Avigliana. Six of these are
modern triple-effect machines equipped with a computer controller, used for the
production of pieces that require large dies or the presence of all three “effects” (punch,
blankholder and cams). Since, in this case, the machine computer does not record cycle
times, time measurements had to be performed “by hand”.
As an example, we will describe here how the drawing time for a prototype roof panel
was measured and how the resulting distribution was determined. In the Eurodies plant
in Avigliana, direct observation of the drawing operation of a batch of 20 roof panels led
to the availability of a small set of cycle time data. Measurements were performed “by
hand”, with a stopwatch. Times were arranged in a histogram fashion, as Figure 19
shows. Instead of using the FlexSim tool “empirical continuous distribution”, we looked
for an actual distribution that could describe in a satisfactory way the trend of times.
Figure 19: Histogram of the drawing cycle time and beta distribution
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The powerful beta distribution was chosen, and its 4 parameters were determined in an
empirical way, on an Excel spreadsheet, comparing the histogram data with the value of
the beta distribution, setting the parameters so that the difference between histogram
and beta distribution was minimized.
The resulting parameters, determined in this empirical way, were then inserted in the
“process time” section of the properties tab of the Drawing press, as follows:
beta(5.4, 11, 1.9, 8)
that is, a = 5.4 minutes, b = 11 minutes, α = 1.9 and β = 8.
The other important parameter to be set in the processors’ properties is the set-up time.
In our case, industrial presses require a rather long set-up, which involves mounting the
dies on the press plates. Since Eurodies Italia has a production volume that is relatively
small, it is not economical for them to adopt SMED solutions (Single Minute Exchange
of Dies), like companies that operate in mass production. Therefore, dies are transported
with a bridge crane and manually mounted on the press, operation that requires from
45 to 90 minutes. Systematic data about set-up times were not available, and it was not
possible to measure a satisfactory amount of set-up operations to perform statistical
calculation. As a consequence, during interviews with the operators, it was discovered
that the process takes from 45 to 90 minutes, as specified above, and it was hypothesized
that the distribution between such values is uniform. The parameter set-up time in the
drawing press properties was then set as:
0 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑡𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑒 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛 𝑐𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎

�
duniform(45, 90) 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑡𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑒 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 𝑐𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎
that is, no set-up time between items of the same batch, and a uniform distribution with
min = 45 minutes and max = 90 minutes, if the batch changes. The resulting properties
tab of the press is shown below in Figure 20.
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Figure 20: Processor properties (press)
c) 3D Laser
Eurodies Italia’s plant is equipped with three modern three-dimensional laser cutting
machines, built by Prima Industrie and called Prima Power OPTIMO®. As the Prima
Power lasers brochure explains, “OPTIMO® is the laser machine by Prima Power for the
high precision cutting and welding of large and very large three-dimensional parts. Its
wide work envelope, over 11 m3, sets no limits to the size of the components which can
be processed. OPTIMO is suitable for a variety of cutting and welding applications.
OPTIMO is a high performing machine with excellent accuracy and quality. Its design
allows an easy access to the work area and the integration with a wide range of solutions
for workpiece support and handling” (Prima Power, 2018). OPTIMO is computer
numerically controlled and has a user-friendly operator interface, as well as
programming software. Nevertheless, the software unfortunately does not record cycle
times: also in this case, it was necessary to manually record the trimming cycle times of
the roof panels batch, in order to obtain some time data. Similarly to what had been done
for the drawing operation, the time taken for trimming operation in the 3D laser work
center has been measured with a stopwatch, and the resulting data have been organized
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in a histogram on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Finally, the histogram data have been
interpolated with a beta distribution, having parameters as follows:
beta(5, 7, 2.3, 8.5)
that is, a = 5 minutes, b = 7 minutes, α = 2.3 and β = 8.5.
The set-up time for the 3D laser trimming operation involves the replacement of the so-
called pallet, with the pallet specifically built for the new workpiece. In addition, the
new CNC program has to be loaded and launched on the machine computer. It is a much
faster operation than the presses set-up, which involves the movement of cast iron dies,
which weigh up to hundreds of tons. Time data about 3D laser set-up were missing, and
also in this case it was necessary to determine them in a rough way with interviews,
basing on operators’ experience. Operators claimed that the set-up operation for the 3D
laser machines takes from 10 to 25 minutes. Because of the lack of time data, no
distribution could be built, and we had to hypothesize a uniform distribution between
those two extremes. Similarly to what had been done for presses, the set-up was inserted
in the 3D lasers properties as:
0 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑡𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑒 𝑖𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛 𝑐𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎

�
duniform(10, 25) 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑡𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑒 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 𝑐𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎
that is, no set-up time between items of the same batch, and a uniform distribution with
min = 10 minutes and max = 25 minutes, if the batch changes. The resulting properties
tab of the 3D Laser is shown below in Figure 21.
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Figure 21: 3D laser properties
4.1.7 Simulation
Such a simple model is appropriate only to evaluate the time in system of a particular
item, that is, to simulate and compute the total cycle time necessary to produce a piece
or a batch. It is possible to use the “experimenter” tool to launch a certain number of
simulations in a row, and to obtain statistical data about their results. The results of 400
replications of the simulation of the model described in the previous paragraphs are
reported below.
Figure 22: Replication plot and frequency histogram of Time in System
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The measurement that was considered is the “Time in system” of the batch of 20 pieces,
in minutes.
Figure 22 shows the replications plot and the frequency histogram of the “time in
system” for the 400 replications of the simulation. The total cycle time for the production
of a batch of 20 roof panels, including set-up times, was:
Mean: 243.42 minutes
Std. dev.: 3.29 minutes
Min: 235.23 minutes
Max: 253.21 minutes
It is clear that, increasing the number of units per batch, the cycle time for the production
of one piece decreases, because each set-up is used to produce more pieces. Nevertheless,
as was said before, 20 is appropriate and realistic in the very context of Eurodies Italia.
4.2 Extended model
The last paragraphs described the so-called simplified model, with just one machine per
type and one flow of material and semifinished items. It is clear that such a model is
useful to make considerations about the cycle time when no queues are present, since
the only non-added-value (NAV) activities that are performed in the simplified model
are set-ups and forklift transportation. Nevertheless, it is also clear that such a model is
not an accurate representation of the real Avigliana plant of Eurodies Italia: more
machines per type are present in the plant (for instance, three 3D lasers and over 10
presses) and more orders are produced at the same type, meaning more batches of items
with different production cycle circulating in the plant in one fixed moment of time. In
order to model and simulate on Flexsim such a complex situation, it was necessary to
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extend the simple model presented above, increasing the number of machines and of
operators, and inserting in the model a greater number of “item types”, with different
production times. This section, after describing the general layout of the extended
model, highlights and explains the differences with the simple model. Figure 23, below,
shows this more realistic model. It must be noted that the position of machines and
warehouses is the same as the layout of the plant, including distances and paths. In this
way, the movements of the forklift in the simulation perfectly trace the movements of
the real forklifts in the plant. With reference to the figure, the material warehouse can be
seen on the left: from there, the forklift moves the metal sheet blanks batch to the two-
dimensional laser, following the mandatory paths drawn on the ground.
Figure 23: Extended model on Flexsim
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From the 2D laser, the blanks that have been cut according to the icon shape are moved
towards the five presses, which have a central “input queue” that sorts the batch to the
first press available. Subsequently, the semifinished items are transported to the three
3D lasers, with their central “input queue” similar to the presses one. Here, they undergo
the roughing trimming operation and are sent back to the presses. Each manufacturing
operation increases a “label” of the item, a numerical counter that indicates which step
of the cycle the item has just undergone, so that the “output queue” knows where to
send the batch next. After the roughing laser cut, the pieces are sent to the presses for
the redrawing and the flanging operations, and finally are moved back to the three-
dimensional lasers, for the finishing cut. In the end, the completed batches are
transported to the delivery area where they are stored.
Instead of explaining all the details of the extended model (most of which have already
been considered in the previous section), the following paragraphs focus on the
differences between simple and extended models. In fact, those are the refining features
that make this model realistic and accurate. In particular:
- layout (and distances) similar to the ones of the actual plant

- increased number of machines
- increased number of item types
- introduction of “Step” label
- total of 6 steps in the production cycle
- each item type has different manufacturing times for every step
4.2.1 Layout similar to the actual plant
After spending several months in the production plant of Eurodies Italia, it was not
difficult to replicate the plant layout in the extended model. Figure 24, below, shows a
portion of the map of the plant. In the upper part, the presses can be seen (in light blue):
it must be noted that our model presents only 5 presses – the large ones – because
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Eurodies own also medium and small presses. In the middle, the three 3D lasers, as well
as the larger 2D laser with its automatic warehouse, can be seen in purple.
Not only the disposition of machines in the model is an accurate replication of the real
plant, but also the distances between them. Furthermore, the mandatory paths that the
forklift must follow in the model replicate the actual paths and passageways between
the three buildings of the plant (“Capannone A”, “Capannone B”, “Capannone C”). In
such a way, having set the maximum speed that the forklift can reach, the time needed
to move material and semifinished items from a machine to another is particularly
accurate.
Figure 24: Map of the plant
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4.2.2 Increased number of machines
As anticipated, the extended model does not have just one machine per type (that is, one
2D laser, one press and one 3D laser). In this case, it was chosen to produce a precise
replication of the actual manufacturing floor: therefore, 5 presses and 3 three-
dimensional laser were inserted in this model. The two-dimensional laser is still one,
because that is the case in the Avigliana plant. In such a way, a greater number of
production orders (with all their 6 steps) can be fulfilled at the same time and the
behaviour of the real plant, where many orders at the same time are processed on many
working centers, can be simulated.
4.2.3 Increased number of steps in production cycle, introduction of “step”

label
Eurodies Italia produces a great variety of bodywork elements: some are plain and
particularly easy to produce, like small interior body reinforcements, which require just
one or two operations (drawing and finishing laser cut). Some others, like the large
automotive side frames, require a grater number of operations, up to 6 or 7. In order to
obtain a model that well represents the complexity of productive operations in Eurodies
Italia, it was chosen to have items with six steps in the manufacturing cycle:
1. Blank outline cutting on 2D laser

2. Drawing
3. Roughing cut on 3D laser
4. Redrawing
5. Flanging
6. Finishing cut on 3D laser
A so-called “label” was added to each item of each batch, a numerical counter that starts
from 0 when the raw material is generated in the warehouse. The label is then increased
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by 1 by every machine that performs a manufacturing operation on the workpiece (2D

laser, press, 3D laser). In this way, it is easy to track which step of the process the item
must undergo next.
Figure 25: Label “step” in a product’s properties
Figure 25 shows, on the left, the label “Step” in the item properties: its value is zero
because the item has just been generated by the source. On the right, in the properties
tab of one of the presses, it can be seen that a “trigger” has been set, so that the value of
the item’s label increases by 1 when the process finishes.
4.2.4 Increased number of item types and different manufacturing times
As anticipated, the single item produced in the simplified model does not represent the
actual complexity of production activities in Eurodies Italia. For the extended model, it
was decided to insert 5 different item types, that is, five different products manufactured
at the same time. Looking at Figure 23, at the beginning of this section, the five sources
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can be seen on the bottom left. Clearly, it is possible to modify the model in order to have
as many items as desired, in order to simulate and test even more complex situations.
The five products are not fixed, but can be chosen among 15 different products, whose
manufacturing times were available after stopwatch measurements. In the same way in
which the times for the roof panel in Paragraph 4.1.6 had been measured and the beta
distributions had been determined, times and distributions for other products were
determined. In the end, we had data about:
- 5 side frames
- 5 roof panels
- 5 internal chassis reinforcements
Manufacturing times for every product are reported below in Table 1, in the usual format
that indicates the beta distribution parameters. For example, the drawing time of the first
side frame is:
beta(5, 10, 2.3, 8)
which means, times distributed according to a beta distribution with parameters a = 5

minutes, b = 10 minutes, α = 2.3 and β = 8.
Table 1: Distribution of times for every process step of each component
Step 2 (Drawing) Step 3 (Roughing) Step 4 (Redrawing)

Side frame 1 beta(5, 10, 2.3, 8) beta(8, 13, 3.3, 7.0) beta(3, 7, 2.3, 8.0)
Side frame 2 beta(12, 16, 2.5, 5) beta(10, 16, 2.3, 8.0) beta(5, 10, 2.5, 5.0)
Side frame 3 beta(7, 13, 1.3, 5.0) beta(7, 14, 2.5, 6.5) beta(4, 8, 2.8, 7.0)
Side frame 4 beta(9, 14, 3, 6.0) beta(9, 15, 2.7, 8.5) beta(5, 9, 2.3, 6.5)
Side frame 5 beta(8, 12, 2.0, 5.0) beta(8, 12, 2.0, 7.5) beta(4, 9, 2.5, 6.0)
Roof panel 1 beta(5.4, 11, 1.9, 8) beta(4, 6, 2.3, 7.5) beta(5, 7, 2.3, 8.0)
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Roof panel 2 beta(8, 12, 2.3, 7.0) beta(6, 9, 2.0, 7.0) beta(5, 9, 2.5, 7.0)
Reinforcement 1 beta(2, 6, 2.3, 8.0) beta(2, 4, 2.5, 6.0) beta(2, 5, 2.2, 7.0)
Step 5 (Flanging) Step 6 (Finishing)

Side frame 1 beta(5, 9, 2.3, 8.0) beta(9, 15, 3.0, 7.5)
Side frame 2 beta(7, 12, 3, 8.0) beta(11, 17, 2.5, 8.5)
Roof panel 1 beta(6, 10, 3, 7.0) beta(6, 8, 2.3, 8.5)
Roof panel 2 beta(7, 10, 3.3, 8.0) beta(5, 10, 2.5, 6.0)
Roof panel 3 beta(5, 9, 2.3, 8.0) beta(5, 8, 3.3, 6.5)
Reinforcement 1 beta(3, 7, 2.3, 8.0) beta(6, 10, 3.3, 6.0)
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It is interesting to notice that the three categories of components have different

manufacturing times: side frames are the most complicated piece to produce, due to their
large dimensions and complex geometry, and therefore require a longer time for their
production. Roof panels are large, but their geometry is less complex, so they are
averagely faster to produce. Internal chassis reinforcements are even faster, but they
present slots and similar openings: for this reason, their drawing/redrawing time is
generally shorter, but their 3D laser trimming time is longer, with respect to roof panels.
In order to summarize the above considerations, Table 2 shows the average expected
value for each components category, and for each production step.
Table 2: Average Beta expected value of every manufacturing process step
Sides Roofs Reinforcements

Avg. drawing time expected value [min] 9.50 7.39 3.14
Avg. laser roughing time exp. value [min] 9.83 4.96 3.89
Avg. redrawing time expected value [min] 5.44 5.47 2.69
Avg. flanging time expected value [min] 7.40 6.85 2.89
Avg. laser finishing time exp. value [min] 10.90 6.02 6.79
~ 65 ~
Chapter 5
Simulation
As it was explained above, one of the worst organizational problems in Eurodies is the
absence of sequencing and scheduling of orders. The head of production decides daily
which orders must be produced in each shift, according to urgencies and to his
experience. The “mix of products” that is produced during the shift, therefore, is not
determined following calculations or temporal considerations, but only decided
depending on which order is more urgent at the moment.
This Thesis wants to lay the foundations for a future solution of such problem. In order
to have an effective scheduling of production orders, it is necessary to determine which
“mix of products” is the most efficient for the plant, considering the time needed for
production of the whole set of different batches. Our extended model, together with the
“Experimenter” tool of the FlexSim software, is perfectly suited to simulate the
behaviour of the production floor, as a response to different set of products.
Such tool, shown in Figure 26, allows users to change a certain number of parameters
(variables), in order to obtain a set of scenarios. In our case, the parameters are the 5
products that must be produced, chosen among the 15 available products, whose times
have been measured.
Before testing several different mixes of products, it was necessary to determine which
“types of mix” were meaningful to be investigated. Reminding that the types of product
are 3 (side frame, roof panel, chassis reinforcement) and the model’s shop floor produces
5 products at the same time, all the following combinations are possible:
~ 67 ~
BODYWORK COMPONENTS
______________________________________________________________________________________________
- 5 roofs
- 5 sides
- 5 reinforcements
- 4 sides, 1 roof
- 4 sides, 1 reinforcement
- 3 sides, 2 roofs
- 3 sides, 2 reinforcements
- 3 sides, 1 roof, 1 reinforcement
- 2 sides, 2 roofs, 1 reinforcement
- …
for a total of 21 combinations.
Figure 26: FexSim's experimenter
Nevertheless, after thorough observations in the plant, it was noticed that few side
frames are produced in Eurodies, generally, no more than 1 or 2 per month and no more
than one at same time. Following this observation, and excluding the mixes that did not
have all the three product types, it was decided to consider only the following 5
combinations:
~ 68 ~
CHAPTER 5: SIMULATION
______________________________________________________________________________________________
- 1 side, 2 roofs, 2 reinforcements (Mix 1)

- 1 side, 1 roof, 3 reinforcements (Mix 2)
- 1 side, 3 roofs, 1 reinforcement (Mix 3)
- 1 side, 4 roofs (Mix 4)
- 1 side, 4 reinforcements (Mix 5)
It was then necessary to generate random sets of 5 numbers, according to such “types of
mix”. With reference to Table 1, the side frames are in the rows 1-5, the roof panels in
the rows 6-10 and the chassis internal reinforcements in the rows 11-15. A Microsoft
Excel add-on tool was utilized to generate 100 sets of 5 random numbers for each of the
5 “types of mix”: for example, for the first type of mix, the parameters were 1 number
from 1 to 5, 2 numbers from 6 to 10, 2 numbers from 11 to 15. Figure 27 shows a portion of
the Excel spreadsheet that contains the 500 sets of 5 random numbers, 100 for each type
of mix.
Figure 27: Sets of random numbers
Looking back to Figure 26, it is now clear that such sets of 5 random numbers are used
as the variables of 100 scenarios, run by the experimenter. During each repetition of the
~ 69 ~
BODYWORK COMPONENTS
______________________________________________________________________________________________
simulation, each machine reads which product is being manufactured and, according to
the row number, reads the processing time from Table 1, as shown in Figure 28, where
the table “Data” is the Flexsim’s model equivalent of Table 1.
Figure 28: Press properties, showing the parameter “Process time from table”
5.1 Output measures
As it was anticipated, the goal of this simulation is to determine which one of the 5 types
of mix has the highest time productivity, or better, which one shows the least amount of
Non Value Added activities (in our case, waiting in queue).
The procedure is as follows:
1) Determine the ideal manufacturing time of a mix
~ 70 ~
______________________________________________________________________________________________
2) Launch the simulation of 100 scenarios of a mix and compute the average “time
in system” of the items
3) Calculate the percentage of NVA (Non Value Added) time:
𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖
%𝑡𝑡𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁 = 100 ∙ �1 − �
��
𝑡𝑡𝚤𝚤𝚤𝚤 𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠
Let us see every step in detail:
1) The ideal manufacturing time of a batch is calculated as the weighted average of the
sum of expected values of the beta distributions. For example, the average drawing
time of the 5 roofs is determined as the average of the 5 beta’s expected values:
Table 3: Parameters for the drawing of the 5 roofs, expected values of the betas
Roof 1 Roof 2 Roof 3 Roof 4 Roof 5

a 5.4 8 6 4 8
b 11 12 11 8 13
α 1.9 2.3 2 2.3 2.3
β 8 7 8 8 5
Expected
6.47475 8.98925 7.00000 4.89320 9.57534
value
Computing the average of the last row, one gets the average expected value for the roof
panels drawing time, that is, 7.3865 minutes.
This same procedure was repeated for all five steps in the manufacturing cycle, and for
all the 15 products: the resulting average expected values for processing time are
reported below in Table 4 (all times are expressed in minutes).
~ 71 ~
BODYWORK COMPONENTS
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Table 4: Processing times for each step and each product type
Drawing Roughing Redrawing Flanging Finishing Total time

Sides 9.499 9.835 5.444 7.399 10.901 43.078
Roofs 7.387 4.958 5.469 6.852 6.023 30.689
Reinf.s 3.140 3.889 2.689 2.893 6.789 19.402
Since the model works by batches of 20 items, it is necessary to multiply by 20 the

weighted average of the five products, according to the “type of mix”. For example, for
Mix 1, made of 1 side, 2 roofs and 2 reinforcements, the ideal processing time will be:
1 ∙ 43.08 + 2 ∙ 30.69 + 2 ∙ 19.40

𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 = 20 ∙ = 573.04 𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚
5
Repeating this calculation for the other four mixes, one gets the ideal manufacturing time
for one “average batch” of all the 5 types of mix. These results are reported in Table 5.
Table 5: Ideal manufacturing times for the five mixes
Composition tideal
Mix 1 1 side, 2 roofs, 2 reinforcements 573.04 min
Mix 2 1 side, 1 roof, 3 reinforcements 527.89 min
Mix 3 1 side, 3 roofs, 1 reinforcement 618.19 min
Mix 4 1 side, 4 roofs 663.34 min
Mix 5 1 side, 4 reinforcements 482.75 min
2) The second step is needed to determine the average actual cycle time for the
production of one batch, when the system is full.
~ 72 ~
______________________________________________________________________________________________
The parameter measured by the statistical tools of FlexSim, which can be used for
this purpose, is the so called “Time in system”. This tool measures the time spent by
each batch in the system, from the moment in which it is generated by the source to
the moment in which it is destroyed by the sink.
Within the Experimenter, it is possible to ask the program to record the average
Time in system for all the batches that are generated in a certain period of time, for
all the scenarios. It was necessary to determine the period of time in which the WIP
(Work In Progress) is constant, in order to avoid to collect data in the ramp up period
when the system is not saturated. With reference to Figure 29, the data about the
WIP were downloaded into an Excel spreadsheet and moved to Matlab, where the
WIP curve was interpolated with a polynomial of degree 10. The derivative of such
polynomial was computed: the first zero of the derivative is where the WIP curve
flattens after the ramp up, that is, the end of such transient period. Figure 30 shows
the graph of such derivative. This calculation was repeated for the five mixes, and
after checking where the ramp up ended, for each of the mixes, the simulation time
where data are collected was set from t = 3000 min to t = 5000 min.
After the experiment is run, all the results are copied on an Excel spreadsheet, in
order to compute the final average between the average cycle time of all the
scenarios. Repeating this process for the other 4 mixes, one gets the whole set of 5
“average time in system”, shown in Table 6.
~ 73 ~
BODYWORK COMPONENTS
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Figure 29: Work In Progress graph
Figure 30: Derivative of the WIP curve
~ 74 ~
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Table 6: Average time in system for the five mixes
Composition ��
𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒊𝒊𝒊𝒊𝒊𝒊𝒊𝒊𝒊𝒊𝒊𝒊𝒊𝒊𝒊
Mix 1 1 side, 2 roofs, 2 reinforcements 1383.04 min

Mix 2 1 side, 1 roof, 3 reinforcements 1342.30 min
Mix 3 1 side, 3 roofs, 1 reinforcement 1395.16 min
Mix 4 1 side, 4 roofs 1433.50 min
Mix 5 1 side, 4 reinforcements 1280.74 min
3) The last step is the actual calculation of NVA time. In this context, non-value-added
activities are:
- Transportations
- Queues
- Operators’ breaks
- Set-ups
- Loading and unloading from the forklift
As it was anticipated at the beginning of this section, the calculation of the NVA time is
straightforward and it is performed according to the following formula:
𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖
%𝑡𝑡𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁 = 100 ∙ �1 − �
��
𝑡𝑡𝚤𝚤𝚤𝚤 𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠
Table 7 shows the results of such computation, which are commented in the next chapter.
~ 75 ~
BODYWORK COMPONENTS
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Table 7: Resulting NVA time for each mix
Composition %𝒕𝒕𝑵𝑵𝑵𝑵𝑵𝑵
Mix 1 1 side, 2 roofs, 2 reinforcements 58.57%

Mix 2 1 side, 1 roof, 3 reinforcements 60.67%
Mix 3 1 side, 3 roofs, 1 reinforcement 55.69%
Mix 4 1 side, 4 roofs 53.73%
Mix 5 1 side, 4 reinforcements 62.31%
5.2 Limitations of the model
Clearly, the implemented model that represents Eurodies Italia’s production shopfloor
shows some limitations, that are considered in the following.
1) No data about defectives
Data about the number of defectives were not available and it was decided not to
implement them in the simulation. Therefore, in the model, 100% of the produced
components are good, there is no scrapping or reworking, which is different from what
it happens in real life.
Nevertheless, our model considers the actual “production process” for the prototypes,
excluding the so-called dies tuning phase, where the most defects and ruptures happen.
2) Set-up times are just hypothesized
The distributions of set-up times were obtained with interviews to the operators, since
they are excessively long to be measured. Both the times suggested by the press
operators and the ones told by the laser operators were coherent, and they were
considered reliable.
~ 76 ~
______________________________________________________________________________________________
3) Components may need a number of manufacturing steps different from 5
In reality, not all the components that are produced by Eurodies need all the steps that
are depicted in the model (drawing, laser roughing, redrawing, flanging, laser finishing).
Some pieces just need two operations, or even one for some very simple components. In
the model, on the contrary, all the items must undergo all the 5 manufacturing processes.
4) The 2D Laser can operate during the night shift
The two-dimensional laser used for cutting the metal sheet according to the blank outline
is fully automated, with an automatic warehouse that loads and unloads the machine.
Therefore, the 2D laser can also work at night, when no operator is present. In our model,
this possibility was not included, because the time was not subdivided into shifts.
5) Beta distributions for manufacturing times determined from a small number of

data
The time measurements performed with a stopwatch were around 20 for every
component: not enough to obtain completely robust statistical data.
~ 77 ~
Chapter 6
Results and discussion
The percentages of time spent on Non Value Added activities can be utilized to order
the mixes, obtaining the following:
1. Mix 4
2. Mix 3
3. Mix 1
4. Mix 2
5. Mix 5
where the first one is the mix with the least amount of NVA time (i.e. the “best mix”)
and the last one is the mix with the greatest amount of NVA time. In order to make some
considerations on such result, it is useful to look at the composition of mixes, shown in
Table 8 below. Since the average values for cycle time, that were shown in Table 6 in the
previous chapter, come from the average of 500 numbers (100 scenarios times 5
replications), it was decided to compute the standard deviation of such sets of data,
which is shown below in the same Table 8.
At least two considerations can be made, just looking at such table. As the number of
chassis internal reinforcements in the mix increases, the time that is wasted in queues
and other nonproductive activities increases as well. In addition, reinforcements are the
typology of product that guarantees to Eurodies the lowest order profit: therefore,
inserting them in a mix looks twice harmful.
~ 79 ~
BODYWORK COMPONENTS
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Table 8: NVA time and time in system std deviation for the five mixes
Composition %𝑡𝑡𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁 𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 std deviation

Mix 4 1 side, 4 roofs 53.73% 85.603
Mix 3 1 side, 3 roofs, 1 reinforcement 55.69% 106.85
Mix 1 1 side, 2 roofs, 2 reinforcements 58.57% 134.67
Mix 2 1 side, 1 roof, 3 reinforcements 60.67% 138.72
Mix 5 1 side, 4 reinforcements 62.31% 143.17
The second consideration about Table 8 is the following: as the NVA time increases
(together with the number of reinforcements in the mix), also the standard deviation of
the average time is system increases noticeably. This increased variability among cycle
times could be the reason of the loss in efficiency.
After obtaining these results, it was considered interesting to investigate the causes of
such correlation between number of reinforcements in the mix and time unproductivity
of the system. Why do the chassis reinforcements “slow down” the shopfloor?
In order to look at what actually happened during the about 1000 minutes of cycle time,
it was thought to consider the FlexSim dashboard tool called “Item Trace Gantt”, or item
Gantt chart. Such tool shows where each item is located in every moment of time (queue,
transporter, processor), as Figure 31 shows.
The figure shows, as examples, three boxes containing the details of three “locations” of
the products. For instance:
OUT press 5: 2455.26 – 2688.07 (232.81)
means that the item called Product 389 has remained in the output queue of Press 5 from
time t = 2455.26 min to time t = 2688.07 min, for a duration of 232.81 minutes. It is clear
~ 80 ~
CHAPTER 6: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
______________________________________________________________________________________________
that reading manually data from the chart is inconvenient and time-consuming,
especially when such a great amount of item is produced in every simulation (75 batches
of 20 pieces → 1500 pieces).
Figure 31: Item Gantt chart
Therefore, the tool “export data as CSV” was utilized: this tool downloads the time data
(both start time and end time) for every step and every item and saves them in a CSV
file, readable by Microsoft Excel.
Five simulations for each of the 5 types of mix were launched, with different products
mixes, and the CSV file with the Gantt data was obtained from every simulation. A
portion of an Excel spreadsheet resulting from one of these CSV files is shown in Figure
32.
Subsequently, the difference between each couple of start and end value was computed,
and the average among the durations of all the items was calculated. This procedure led
to the results shown in Figure 33. In such figure, showing a portion of the same Microsoft
Excel spreadsheet of the previous image, the average duration for every step of the
manufacturing cycle can be seen on the left.
~ 81 ~
BODYWORK COMPONENTS
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Figure 32: Gantt chart data
Figure 33: Average queue time and manufacturing time for one mix
Subsequently, since each item is worked in the same manufacturing center multiple
times (twice on the laser machine, and three times on the press), the durations belonging
to the waiting time and manufacturing time of the same working center were added up,
leading to the results shown on the right.
~ 82 ~
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Notice that, in Figure 32, “CODE” means queues, and “LAV” stands for manufacturing.
Subsequently, the procedure was repeated for all the five types of mix: Table 9
summarizes the results obtained in this way.
Table 9: Average queue time and manufacturing time for the five mixes
Mix1 Mix2 Mix3 Mix4 Mix5

Transporter 9,06 9,16 8,89 9,25 9,01
CODE Presse 25,85 23,19 27,06 29,34 21,96
CODE Laser 2D 1,68 1,69 1,69 1,69 1,70
CODE Laser 3D 15,74 18,26 12,23 9,70 20,73
CODE Delivery 3,45 3,46 3,24 3,17 3,68
LAV LASER 2D 3,48 3,51 3,54 3,50 3,53
LAV PRESSE 22,71 19,72 25,60 28,22 17,32
LAV LASER 3D 13,95 13,87 13,95 13,62 14,10
TOT 95,93 92,84 96,20 98,48 92,06
Σ tNVA 55,78 55,74 53,11 53,15 57,09
%tNVA 0,58 0,60 0,55 0,54 0,62
It is important to highlight that, for the results shown in the previous table, the durations
of the queue were divided by 20, in order to refer the times to a single item, and not to
the whole batch.
Looking at Table 9, and specifically at the emboldened values, it is possible to make

further considerations. Mix 4 is the “best mix”, and Mix 5 the one showing the greatest
inefficiency: if we look at the average duration of laser queues and press queues for these
two mixes, it can be noted that Mix 4 has the longest press queue and the shortest laser
queue, whereas Mix 5 has the longest laser queue and the shortest press queue.
Therefore, it may be hypothesized that the longer time needed by the reinforcements for
the finishing laser trim is one of the causes of the greater inefficiency of the mixes that
~ 83 ~
BODYWORK COMPONENTS
______________________________________________________________________________________________
contain more reinforcements. In fact, the machines that are able to perform such
machining on the workpieces are only three, compared to the five presses. For this
reason, since the reinforcements need much shorter press processing, compared to the
other types of components, several of the five presses could be idle for a greater
percentage of time in the mixes with more reinforcements, while the laser area behaves
as a bottleneck.
It may be thought, then, that it would be sufficient for Eurodies to avoid producing
chassis internal reinforcements, and focus on the other typologies of components. The
reasons behind such a decision would be at least two: the first is the reduction in
shopfloor production efficiency that such components cause, as it was explained right
above; the second, more economical, is that reinforcements, even if they were produced
with 100% efficiency, are the components that ensure the lowest order profit.
This solution, nevertheless, is not applicable in Eurodies because the company does not
accept orders by its costumers for single components, but for “sets” of pieces. Therefore,
to accept the order for a profitable side frame, it might be necessary for them to accept
also an order for the production of several internal reinforcements, if these belong to the
same set.
We now suggest a different possible solution to this issue. In the area of Turin, there are
many other companies that operate in the same sector as Eurodies, producing the same
type of component, but of smaller dimensions, and having a definitely lower level of
technology. Their ability to compete on the international market is surely lower than the
one of Eurodies, also for their lower perceived credibility and reliability. These smaller
companies focus almost entirely on the internal market, and receive a definitely lower
amount of orders, with respect to Eurodies.
Therefore, Eurodies could accept orders in synergy with these other companies, creating
a sort of partnership and then acquiring the production orders of the most profitable and
~ 84 ~
______________________________________________________________________________________________
efficient components contained in the “macro-order”. This kind of partnership would

benefit Eurodies Italia, increasing its productivity and its influence on the territory, but
at the same time it would benefit also the other minor companies interested by the
alliance, because it would increase their own production level and their turnover.
Besides the clear advantages that Eurodies would obtain by doing so, such as the
possibility to take advantage of all its productive capabilities without wasting financial
and temporal resources on less profitable components, the company would also further
increase its international links, because the foreign carmakers that are currently its
costumers would be able to order even more components to Eurodies, which they trust
as a validated supplier of high quality prototypes. At the same time, the subcontractors
could decrease their dependence upon the local automakers, entering an international
market that would ensure them more contracts and higher profits, allowing them to gain
international credibility and to be “known” by foreign automakers, which up to this
moment do not consider them as possible suppliers, due to their smaller dimensions.
~ 85 ~
Chapter 7
Conclusions
At the end of this Master’s Thesis, it is necessary to define in which way the obtained
results can be useful for Eurodies and for similar companies that operate in the sector of
automotive bodywork prototype production.
As it was anticipated in the section about model limitations, our model does show
several approximations: despite being as accurate as possible, it is clear that a shopfloor
model built on a simulation software cannot track and predict all the variables that
influence production in real life. Time data about process durations were so scarce and
the production cycles for prototype-making are so complex and variable, that it was not
possible to obtain results that are completely accurate and realistic.
Nevertheless, the general idea and the work methods and procedures that were utilized
to obtain such results are correct and they allow to make the considerations that are
reported in Chapter 6.
This Thesis wanted to show how process simulation software, in particular FlexSim, can
be very useful also for medium-small industries like Eurodies Italia. When more data
will be available, with the implementation of Industry 4.0 tools and methodology (which
is recently starting to be applied in a broader pool of companies in Italy), a model like
ours could be made more accurate and utilized everyday in order to plan production,
deciding how to build the “mix”, i.e. which components are manufactured at the same
time, so that inefficiencies and queues are reduced.
~ 86 ~
BODYWORK COMPONENTS
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Another way in which FlexSim could be successfully utilized is to predict the impact of
a change in the shopfloor layout, before making an important investment like the
purchase of a new machine (which often have prices in the order of hundreds of
thousands of euros). If the company implemented a FlexSim model similar to ours, they
could simulate the variation of performance caused by an additional work center –
maybe a new 3D laser – and the investment decision would be supported by a more
rigorous case study basis. For example, Eurodies has recently moved its productive
activities to the Avigliana plant, from its previous plant located in Rivoli. The new
layout, with the location of all the machines and production lines were decided basing
on experience: if a tool like FlexSim had been used, many different possibilities for the
position of the machines in the new plant’s buildings could have been simulated in order
to choose the most efficient for the movements of material and semifinished products.
The objective of this Master’s Thesis, therefore, is not providing a company with certain
data and with a defined new work methodology: it is rather to provide the company
with the idea that a new methodology is possible and profitable. Our model shall be
made available to Eurodies, as a basis from which they can start, in order to improve
their decision-making process in such a variable and difficult sector like the production
of prototype components.
~ 87 ~
References
ACEA, 2018. Statistics Key Figures. [Online]
Available at: https://www.acea.be/statistics/tag/category/key-figures
Cattell, D., 2008. Stamping 101: Anatomy of a Mechanical Press. Stamping Journal.
Draghi, M., 2007. Dalla ricerca all'innovazione per la crescita economica. Camigliatello
Silano, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa.
European Commission, 2018. Automotive Industry. [Online]

Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/automotive_en
[Accessed 10 Luglio 2018].
Fan, J. et al., 2006. 3D finite element simulation of deep drawing with damage
development. International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture, Volume 46, pp. 1035-
1044.
FlexSim Software Products Inc, 2014. FlexSim Brochure. [Online]

Available at: https://www.flexsim.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/06/FlexSimBrochure.pdf
Groover, M. P., 2010. Fundamentals of Modern Manufacturing. IV ed. Hoboken, NJ: John
Wiley & Sons, Inc..
Prima Power, 2017. Laser Platino. [Online]

Available at: https://www.primapower.com/platino/
Prima Power, 2018. The Laser | 3D Line (Brochure). : .
~ xi ~
Unioncamere & Prometeia S.p.a., 2015. Il settore automotive nei principali paesi europei,
Roma: Commissione Industria, Commercio, Turismo del Senato della Repubblica
italiana.
~ xii ~
Ringraziamenti
A conclusione di questo lavoro di ricerca, che rappresenta il termine del mio percorso
universitario di cinque anni, vorrei ringraziare tutte le persone che mi hanno sostenuto
e supportato, in modi differenti, in modo che tale percorso fosse praticamente privo di
difficoltà e intoppi.
Prima di tutto i miei genitori, che mi hanno aiutato moralmente ed economicamente,

credendo nelle mie capacità, supportandomi con i loro consigli e il loro sostegno
affettivo, e appoggiandomi in tutte le mie scelte di carriera e di vita.
Un ringraziamento, poi, va a tutti i miei parenti (Ludovica, zii, zie e cugini) che sono
sempre stati disponibili ad aiutarmi e a sostenermi durante questi cinque anni, e tutti
quelli precedenti.
Vorrei anche ringraziare i miei amici, sia quelli di Sanremo (Andrea, Federico, Luca
Tommaso e gli altri), sia quelli di Torino (Luca, Raffaele, Riccardo e tutti gli altri) per
aver portato un po’ di leggerezza e divertimento in un periodo che sarebbe stato
altrimenti impegnativo e stressante. Un ringraziamento particolare a Margherita, che ha
revisionato questa Tesi, prendendosi il tempo e l’impegno di leggere 85 pagine in
inglese.
Un grande ringraziamento anche a Michela, per avermi sopportato per la maggior parte
di questo periodo di studi, che si conclude oggi.
Ringrazio le persone che ho conosciuto in America e in Germania, con cui ho stretto

amicizie profonde e durature. Fra gli altri, cito Gabriele e Stefano, Antonio, Lavinia,
Paolo, Simone e Tommaso.
~ xi ~
Un ringraziamento a tutti i miei compagni di piano del Collegio, di quattro piani diversi,
che sono stati i miei “coinquilini” per cinque anni.
Grazie anche a Gabriele, che ha collaborato con me in questo lavoro di ricerca: auguri
per il proseguimento della tua carriera con il Master di secondo livello in Sports
Engineering.
Infine, vorrei ringraziare i miei colleghi dell’MBA che ho iniziato la settimana scorsa.
Anche se vi ho appena conosciuto, sono sicuro che contribuirete in modo eccezionale
alla mia crescita personale e professionale.
Torino, 18 settembre 2018
Grazie a tutti!
~ xii ~

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POLITECNICO DI TORINO

Collegio di Ingegneria Aerospaziale, Meccanica, dell’Autoveicolo e della Produzione

Analysis, modeling and simulation of the

prof. Franco Lombardi

Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................. 3

Chapter 2: Industrial and production processes in Eurodies Italia .................................. 11

2.1 Modeling of dies ............................................................................................................. 20

2.2 Simulation of drawing ................................................................................................... 21

2.3 Casting process ............................................................................................................... 22

2.4 Milling process................................................................................................................ 24

2.5 Drawing process ............................................................................................................. 26

2.6 Redrawing process ......................................................................................................... 28

2.7 Flanging process ............................................................................................................. 28

2.8 Description of industrial press ..................................................................................... 30

2.9 3D Laser trimming process ........................................................................................... 32

Chapter 3: Company critical issues ....................................................................................... 35

Chapter 4: Model ...................................................................................................................... 41

4.1 Simplified model ............................................................................................................ 42

4.1.2 Queue ........................................................................................................................ 45

4.1.3 Transporter ............................................................................................................... 46

4.1.4 Operator .................................................................................................................... 47

4.1.6 Processors ................................................................................................................. 50

4.1.7 Simulation ................................................................................................................ 56

4.2 Extended model .............................................................................................................. 57

4.2.1 Layout similar to the actual plant ......................................................................... 59

4.2.2 Increased number of machines .............................................................................. 61

4.2.3 Increased number of steps in production cycle, introduction of “step” label 61

Chapter 5: Simulation .............................................................................................................. 67

5.1 Output measures ............................................................................................................ 70

5.2 Limitations of the model ............................................................................................... 76

Chapter 6: Results and discussion ......................................................................................... 79

Chapter 7: Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 86

Figure 1: Activity diagram of industrial processes in Eurodies (first part) ..................... 12

Figure 2: Activity diagram of industrial processes in Eurodies (second part) ................ 13

Figure 3: A so-called “pallet” (support for the semifinished component) ....................... 15

Figure 4: Mounting of die and punch on the hydraulic press ........................................... 16

Figure 5: Shims inserted between “candles” and blankholder .......................................... 17

Figure 6: 3D laser trimming operation .................................................................................. 18

Figure 7: Activity diagram of the prototype component production phase .................... 19

Figure 8: Hydraulic presses built by Gigant Industries ...................................................... 32

Figure 9: Simplified model ...................................................................................................... 43

Figure 10: Source properties ................................................................................................... 44

Figure 11: Queue properties ................................................................................................... 45

Figure 12: Transporter properties .......................................................................................... 46

Figure 13: Distribution of times for forklift loading/unloading ........................................ 47

Figure 15: Time distribution of operators' breaks (MTBF) ................................................. 49

Figure 16: Dispatcher properties ............................................................................................ 49

Figure 18: Empirical distribution resulting from 2D Laser times ...................................... 51

Figure 20: Processor properties (press) ................................................................................. 54

Figure 21: 3D laser properties ................................................................................................. 56

Figure 23: Extended model on Flexsim ................................................................................. 58

Figure 24: Map of the plant ..................................................................................................... 60

Figure 25: Label “step” in a product’s properties ................................................................ 62

Figure 26: FexSim's experimenter .......................................................................................... 68

Figure 27: Sets of random numbers ....................................................................................... 69

Figure 29: Work In Progress graph ........................................................................................ 74

Figure 30: Derivative of the WIP curve ................................................................................. 74

Figure 31: Item Gantt chart ..................................................................................................... 81

Figure 32: Gantt chart data...................................................................................................... 82