Facility Layout Design, Simulation, and Optimization for Kaolin Beneficiation Plant Using FLEXSIM
Keywords:
Facility layout, SLP, Flexsim simulation, Kaolin ore beneficiationAbstract
Nigeria has huge deposits of kaolin spread across the country. Yet, Kaolin and its derivates cost Nigeria around 14 million USD annually with diverse industrial applications such as the manufacturing of paper, ceramics, cosmetics, medicine, paints, and porcelain. This loss of revenue is due to the under tapping of the mineral because of the absence of beneficiation plants. Currently, the mining is largely done crudely by artisan miners. Implementation of modern manufacturing infrastructure require adequate attention to cater to facilities layout and future improvements, reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction, space utilization etc. Simulation exercises proffer solutions to these problems in a virtual environment. This work reports a proposed facility layout design for kaolin beneficiation. The proposed plant was designed using Systematic Layout Planning (SLP) methodology and tested using FLEXSIM Simulation software to optimize the production capacity of the plant. The results from the design showed that the optimized production plant had an annual production capacity of 95,328 tons, which was higher than the initial layout with 69,120 tons per annum. The workstations utilization for the optimized layout showed better results than the initial layout design, with the optimized results showing improvements in the efficiency of the workstations as follows (after the simulation): fluid mixer1 had 73.77%, sedimentation tank had 18.44%, rotary drum dryer had 18.44%, packaging line had 63.87%, Screener_washer had 74.46%, and magnetic separator has 63.94% utilization.
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