A methodology for improving enterprise performance by analysing worker capabilities via simulation

In this paper we outline a methodology for improving the overall performance of small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) by analysing worker capabilities through simulation and modelling. We firstly examine key performance indicators (KPIs) of the SME in its as-is state. The primary KPIs we examine are the resource constraint metrics (RCMs) and customer misery index (CMI). The RCMs help to identify the skill that is the biggest contributor to the overall system constrainedness. The CMI is a measure of customer demand satisfaction. By increasing the supply of the most heavily constrained skill we should increase the flow of work orders through the system, which will in turn result in a reduced CMI, or at least provide a potential for more work orders to flow through the system. We run a set of experiments on data from a real factory, which upgrades the skill sets of workers with the most heavily constrained skill, and then we look at the system improvement. The overall impact of this experimental methodology is that it can make recommendations to an organisation about which worker to upgrade with which skill, and how the training should be implemented, to yield the optimal improvement to the enterprise.