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Welcome to TranSystems | Automation Associates, Inc.'s monthly Innovations, where we share best practices in simulation engineering through case studies and industry experience. In this month's issue, we focus on how using the correct simulation technology can provide answers to the growing challenges and concerns within the transportation industry. Hmmm, Tastes So Good! Ask anyone who’s ever been aboard a luxury cruise about the cuisine, and they’re bound to tell you how they never went hungry! It’s a reality I was lucky enough to discover this summer thanks to Royal Caribbean Cruises, which takes its culinary experience so seriously it hired TranSystems to develop a simulation model to determine if current galley designs had enough equipment capacity to meet the growing demands of the passengers’ appetite! This past summer, the TranSystems project team, based in Nashville, flew across the pond to England and were then split-up among two different mammoth-sized ships: the Celebrity Constellation and the Royal Caribbean Jewel of the Seas. While on the high seas, traveling to ports of call like Ireland, Scotland, France and Norway, and in between taste testing all the evening deserts, the TranSystems team focused on the processes of the ships to mass-produce gourmet quality cuisine. We immediately learned two important factors greatly impact how quickly food can be delivered to passengers on board: the transportation capabilities of the ship and the usage of multiple galleys where the cuisine is prepared and stored. With cooked food, even an extra minute of transit or storage time can result in decreased quality, which is unacceptable. As a result, these two challenges were put to the test in a simulation study of how the ship makes bread. A simulation analysis allows for the inclusion of a large range of details and considers system variability. While each galley has the capability of producing its own bread, Royal Caribbean Cruises wanted to analyze potential bottlenecks in making and storing bread from one central location. What the simulation-based analysis told them was that while the average utilization of its main rotary rack oven was far less than 100 percent, it was operating at near full capacity at two critical times during the day: breakfast and dinner.In fact, making bread aboard a cruise ship is similar to the roadways in major U.S. cities; normally there’s plenty of capacity, but annoying, unproductive back up occur during peak rush hours or when critical failures occur (such as accidents on the roadway, or an equipment breakdown in the galley). Given the production schedule the chefs wished to follow; the requirements for each bread type; and the existing planned resources; the simulation model demonstrated that many of the bread items would not be prepared in time for dinner, an outcome that would have resulted in an unpleasant customer culinary experience.There were few other options. Some of the bread could be produced earlier in the day when the rotary rack oven is under-utilized, but then it would not be as fresh for dinner, decreasing quality. Additionally, producing more bread earlier in the day requires more storage space to house the bread until it’s consumed. So in the end, while the daily capacity of the rotary rack oven was enough to meet the total daily demand of the bakery, it was not sufficient enough meet the varied requirements of the bakery over the course of the day.This model allowed Royal Caribbean to anticipate problems and accurately evaluate trade-offs (cost, space, quality) in potential solutions. Adding an additional rotary rack oven, which would enable chefs to make more bread in time, was one of three changes to the galley designs ultimately implemented by the cruise liner as a direct result of our study’s finding. The simulation analysis served as yet another example of how TranSystems services can help companies better analyze improving their performance while minimizing cost. Royal Caribbean has expressed interest and started data collection efforts for a second simulation project, which would involve pedestrian flow modeling on future cruise ships. This effort is particularly important to the cruise liner as it continues to welcome more and more passengers aboard. Pedestrian modeling can be used to evaluate corridors and venues, along with determining the effects of ship programming on pedestrian flow and congestion. We look forward to continuing to work with Royal Caribbean to improve their processes! Provide your feedback on this edition of AAI Innovations. Did you miss last month's edition of AAI's Innovations, What is the Transportation Modeling Studio? |
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Logistics 2007 
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