Investigation of the effects of IMPULS Maturity model with a simulation-based analysis

Abstract

Industry 4.0 enables to produce products that are complex in production in a short time and in high quality by entering factories and making our production environments smarter. Industry 4.0 is defined as the digitization of all work processes of a company, not just a production line or an activity. In the scope of these definitions, the current situation was determined with IMPULS Industry 4.0 maturity model with a previous study and then as-is model was stated by using ARIS which is one of the business process model software in a solar panel production company in this study. The next step is to design and run a simulation model based on current innovations and improvements. As a result of the simulation analysis, the results were compared by the view of operations, waiting times and resources usage in the current situation and the new situation. A total of 20 panels will be produced by using 120 cells. 110 minutes of waiting time is decreased to 70 minutes. So, the improvement rate of outcome is 36%. Waiting time’s improvement rate is 14% as well. The conclusion of this study, via analyzing the current situation of the company, as a managerial decision determining which stages of the production line will apply transformation to Industry 4.0 processes. Also, this study can be considered as a pioneer applied study for the next transformation cases on the other maturity models with more effectively in a shorter time by making different additions appropriate for the similar purposes.