Simulation now has a long record of improving operational efficiency and effectiveness in many areas – manufacturing, commercial transportation and logistics, health care, public-sector transport, service industries, and military operations.  Historically, simulation’s earliest successes appeared in the manufacturing sector.  These successes began with attention to value-added operations (e.g., at machines often entailing high capital investments) and rapidly spread to the non-value-added but very necessary material-handling requirements within factories.

            In this paper, we describe the simulation and consequent analysis of material-handling requirements for a major automotive supplier.  Successful material handling operations must satisfy several compelling interests, including safety, timeliness, efficiency, and effective support of the actual manufacturing operations under conditions of tightly constrained financial investment and ongoing financial support.  This successful simulation and analysis project helped the client enterprise accommodate needed production increases with reduced headcount and hence minimal or no cost increases, including those entailed by in new equipment and floor space.