ETD

• epc
• vba

In competitive converting industries, effective coordination between marketing and technical departments is critical when evaluating new product requests. Poorly structured feasibility assessments may lead to performance losses, inefficient line allocation, and suboptimal production planning. This study was conducted at Sofidel S.p.A., Porcari (Lucca), with the objective of developing a structured decision-support model to improve product feasibility evaluation and production line allocation.
An Excel-based model supported by VBA was developed using company data from two production lines. The model integrates technical, operational, and commercial parameters to perform early- stage performance efficiency estimation, pallet coverage analysis, and bottleneck identification. It analyzes both existing products and new customer requests to ensure practical applicability within the company’s converting operations.
The developed tool serves a dual purpose. For the marketing team, it assesses product feasibility by identifying technical constraints, explaining causes of infeasibility, and providing optimization suggestions when possible. For the company’s technical office, the model determines whether a requested product belongs to an existing product family or requires the creation of a new one. In the case of new product families, the model evaluates annual requested quantities and setup times to support structured acceptance or rejection decisions.
Additionally, the study includes an analysis of existing products to identify low-performance items and highlight improvement opportunities. The resulting framework enhances cross-functional collaboration, reduces decision uncertainty, and promotes efficiency-oriented planning within the converting process.