WITNESS Supports New Plant Design for Kia Motors

Lanner’s Predictive Simulation Platform Models Throughput Capacity for South Korean Car Manufacturer

Lanner, a provider of simulation software proven to maximise performance and optimise resources, and South Korean Reseller Dynamicsoft, today announced that Kia Motors Corporation has deployed its predictive simulation platform, WITNESS, to support the design of a new manufacturing plant in Kwangju, South Korea. WITNESS was selected in order to verify the new design, specifically to find the optimum balance of EMS carriers, line balance and synchronisation required for the main buck and roof buck fixtures in preparation for the welding process.

Kia produces 2 million vehicles every year which are sold across 172 countries. In response to increased demand across its passenger vehicle range, the South Korean based manufacturer redesigned its Kwangju plant to accommodate increased throughput of its Sportage model.

As a result of using WITNESS, Kia has been able to verify the throughput capacity at the plant, including cycle times, number of stations, buffers, material flow and control concept of the bodyshop. In turn this project ensured that the manufacturer could fulfil its objective to increase its production volumes.

“Adopting a robust, dynamic predictive simulation platform such as WITNESS is crucial when designing a manufacturing plant on this scale,” comments Kwang-hyun Seong, director, Dynamicsoft. “The investment required in establishing new facilities is immense and in order to preserve margins and support Kia’s ethos of providing quality cars and excellent service, they need verification beyond any doubt that their chosen design will represent the most efficient operations and maximise throughput. WITNESS has enabled them to achieve this goal, reducing risk and facilitating the best decisions, thus ensuring that both customer service and profitability are maximised.”