ILOG optimisation software created a 'virtual' production line for automaker Nissan and helped increase potential production by 30 percent at Europe's most efficient car plant.
ILOG optimisation software created a 'virtual' production line for automaker Nissan. ILOG Solver helped increase potential production by 30 percent at Europe's most efficient car plant. ILOG has announced that its ILOG Solver optimisation software helped automaker Nissan add a 'virtual' third production line at its factory in Sunderland.

Enabling three car models to be built on two lines, resulting in substantial savings from not having to build a new line.

In addition, the ILOG software, part of a scheduling system developed by PA Consulting, has increased potential production by around 30 percent without any significant investment, making Europe's most efficient car production facility even more productive.

The scheduling tool is believed to be the first tool of its kind, capable of producing end-to-end, parallel car sequencing tasks for a whole week¡s production, while accommodating plant crossovers.

Where, in this case, Micras¡ can go from one body shop to either paint lines, and from either paint lines to either trim and chassis lines.

ILOG Views, ILOG's graphical user interface tool, is also a part of the scheduling solution.

It powers the user-friendly and visually rich interface that allows the effect of sequence changes to be clearly viewed and monitored.

The Nissan Sunderland plant produces around 334,000 cars each year - 38 complete cars per hour, every hour - a production run rate that has earned the plant the reputation as Europe's most efficient automotive plant, and resulted in its selection to manufacture the company's new Almera model for the European market.

At the same time, the plant will continue to produce the Micra and Primera models.

The goal is to increase overall efficiency so that production of all three-car models can be accommodated on the two existing production lines without interruption.

The new scheduling system, incorporating ILOG's market-leading scheduling software, has enabled scheduling of the third vehicle model to be mixed among the existing two main production lines, while maintaining production of the two other models.

'Today, up to 70 percent of all Nissans sold in Europe originate at Sunderland,' said Frank Berkovits, production planning Manager, Nissan Sunderland plant.

'The new scheduling tool from PA Consulting and ILOG not only gives us better scheduling capabilities but has also reduced the order cycle time and given greater flexibility to our customers.

This leading-edge tool reinforces Nissan's position at the forefront of technology applications in car production.' Optimised scheduling delivers the business benefits The primary benefit of the system is that it enables three car models to be built with the existing facilities at Sunderland without major retooling or the addition of another production line.

Further benefits of the new scheduling system include: 1) Eliminates the need for resequencing vehicles while they are in storage buffers between major sections of the plant.

Storage buffers are used by many car manufacturers to help overcome scheduling problems 2) Supports strategic 'what if' investigation so that, for example, the impact of potential changes to operational rules or constraints within the plant can be fully investigated 3) Schedule adherence rose from 3 percent to 90 percent after the system's implementation 4) Schedule results can be produced in minutes instead of days.

'This Nissan application is the perfect example of optimisation, specifically, how companies can maximize the output of existing resources,' said Denis Sennechael, sales director for ILOG's Automotive Division, based in Detroit.

'The competitive advantages of ILOG Solver are drawn from the strengths of constraint programming technologies.

This provides production planners with the most accurate, up-to-date vehicle sequencing information.' Dually headquartered in Paris and Mountain View, Calif., ILOG is the world's leading supplier of C++ and Java software components.

ILOG recently opened a sales and technical support office in Southfield, Mich., to support the automotive market.

ILOG's embeddable optimisation, visualisation and business rules software components dramatically shorten the development time of enterprise software applications in the supply chain, telecommunications, transportation and financial services industries.

In addition to optimisation applications where the company enjoys a significant market share, ILOG is playing an active role in the emergence of the e-Business software components market.