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ABSTRACT: Various approaches and techniques have been adopted for reducing cycle time. They can be classified into
the following four categories:
1. To establish inter-relationships among critical processes, e.g. pull-type manufacturing;
2. To rationalise the process layout; e.g. cellular layout;
3. To control product mix and product volume released into production lines;
4. To schedule operations at critical processes, e.g. bottleneck-based scheduling;
5. To simplify and integrate processes, e.g. reduce number of operations in process flow.
Each of them has merits and weakness. For a company, it would be very risky to implement any technique without going
through a detail analysis and evaluation. Manufacturing simulation provides an effective way for a company to evaluate
impact of introducing a new policy or layout on productivity. The paper discusses how WITNESS, the simulation software,
can be used to help companies shorten cycle time.