The Blog Squad

One of Billiton’s South African smelters (Bayside) produces a range of different primary aluminium products that are sold on the South African domestic market. The challenge was to assess the logistics of inbound and outbound vehicle flow through the main gates at Billiton’s Bayside Aluminium plant. Vehicle queuing at the gates to the plant was a problem because frequently-used weighbridges were located near the gates. If the weighbridges were relocated, how would this change influence the inbound and outbound flow of vehicles? Billiton employed Arena® simulation software to build a model representing the entire vehicle flow through the plant as well as between the casthouse and the stockyard. Analista Modelling Systems using Arena generated three scenarios and the results of the Arena model proved that the scenario with the shortest cycle time was not the best solution. All three scenarios would have led to at least a 50% improvement in queuing times, but the first and second scenarios would have cost at least US$60,000 (360,000 ZAR, South Africa Rand) compared to US$30,000 (180,000 ZAR) for the third scenario.