WITNESS Saves £5 Million for Lucent

Lucent Technologies.pdf

A single simulation saved about £5 million by helping engineers develop a more efficient printed circuit board manufacturing process that eliminated the need for a third shift. Spreadsheet analysis originally showed that three shifts would be required to meet the manufacturing schedule to build new processors for the switch that serves as the backbone of the AT&T network. Hoping to improve the process, Lucent Technologies engineers performed a WITNESS simulation that provided a much more realistic model of the process and allowed them to quickly and inexpensively evaluate a wide range of alternatives. Working with the simulation, Lucent engineers improved routing logic and test mixtures and made other changes that increased productivity by about 50% without any additional expenditures.