Colloquia

Summary

In the quest for sustainable energy solutions, hydrogen fuel-cells have emerged as a promising technology, offering a clean and efficient alternative. HyMove, a pioneering company based in Arnhem, the Netherlands, stands at the forefront of hydrogen fuel-cell innovation. However, optimizing the assembly process and production for these fuel-cells presents challenges. This study outlines the process of translating manual assembly steps for constructing a hydrogen fuel cell into a simulation, with the goal of predicting and optimizing production capabilities of the maximum number of fuel cells, reducing production time, and optimizing the required resources. The essential scope parameters and constraints for shaping the simulation goals and subsequent analyses have been defined. The Key parameters include work floor size, warehouse dimensions, maximum working stations, weekly units produced, and the number of workers. This process is modelled through Plant Simulation software, featuring four scenarios designed to enhance production efficiency and address bottlenecks from prior iterations of every scenario. Every scenario encompasses varied parameters in both number of workers and fuel cell quantities to be produced while work floor size and warehouse dimensions are set to be the same for all scenarios. The study's findings indicate that the assembly line's most efficient scenario, referred to as the parallel scenario, exhibits a speed improvement of 32-40% compared to the baseline scenario. Furthermore, a simulated scenario was developed to demonstrate the potential for increased production by investing in a larger facility, enabling a substantial 4-6 times enhancement in throughput with respect to the parallel scenario.  While the study offers valuable insights into optimizing hydrogen fuel-cell production through simulation, future research should prioritize real-world implementation to validate the indicative nature of results and to enhance the predictive accuracy. This continued exploration holds promise for advancing sustainable energy production and improving manufacturing efficiency.