Improving the Organization of Iron Casts Finishing Processes

The paper presents issues of production processes improvement in foundries in terms of finishing treatment of iron casts on grinding workstations. Basing on the conducted analysis of work ergonomics on the grinding line and the observation of work at workstations, a range of improvements related to organizing grinding treatment processes was proposed. In order to visualize the production system functioning and estimate its efficiency, a simulation model of a grinding line has been created, on which a simulation experiment was carried out. Due to many factors influencing the effectiveness of processes, it was suggested to use multi-criteria evaluation tools to choose the most rational solution. Three criteria have been assumed, according to which particular improvement variants were evaluated. Also, criteria weights have been set according to the Saaty’s method, and particular solution variants have been assessed separately with respect to each criterion. On the basis of the presented course of action, the best solution has been selected from among the analyzed options.