Capacity Management and Bottleneck Identification in Green Tea Industry Using Simulation

Abstract

This study aims to measure production capacity and identify process bottlenecks in green tea processing plants in Bandung. This research method uses Discrete Event Simulation (DES) which starts from the arrival of the picked tea leaves to the final product in the form of dry tea and tea powder after processing. The problem faced by the company is the inability to increase daily production capacity, which results in queues for material processing that will degrade the quality of the product due to being too long in the process. To overcome this, Theory of Constraints (TOC) is used to identify the location of bottlenecks so that production can be completed faster. Validated simulation results indicate a production capacity of only 10 tons per day compared to a historical target of 20–30 tons. The main bottleneck is caused by the rotary mixer, which has a utilization rate of 66.87%, while the tea ball mixer has the longest waiting time, at 802 minutes. Various simulation scenarios show that the addition of machines has a significant impact on the system; in the 30-ton production scenario, the total processing time is reduced from 43.1 hours to 23.25 hours. This study shows that Discrete Event Simulation (DES) supports the TOC methodology to be able to optimize production capacity.