A structured methodology to optimize throughput of production lines Rodrigo Pascual a , Rodrigo Madariaga a , Gabriel Santelices a , David Godoy a , Enrique Lopez Droguett b a Physical Asset Management Lab, Department of Mining Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Santiago, Chile; b Center for Risk Analysis, Reliability and Environmental Modeling, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife-PE, Brazil Abstract The increasing social and environmental demands, financial and operational restraints, and high qualifications requirements constantly affect the competitiveness and performance of the mining industry. In the literature, a wide range of techniques have been developed to cope with these challenges. However, a structured methodology to integrate solutions of diverse nature considering PAM perspectives has not been developed in depth. In this work we introduce a continuous improvement methodology based on prioritizing and optimizing the best opportunities in different asset management areas to achieve throughput targets. The proposed procedure, called Throughput Oriented System Improvement Methodology (TOSIM), starts with a criticality analysis to identify the bottleneck components. It is followed by the application of an optimization technique, finishing with the implementation and evaluation of policy changes. The aforementioned steps have to be applied cyclically until the production target is reached. We illustrate its use in a case study from a mining company in northern Chile. Results show that the operational efficiency can be significantly improved by optimally changing the maintenance policy and the plant layout. Keywords: Physical Asset Management, Performance Improvement, Criticality Analysis, Production Target, Production Lines.  Corresponding author. Email: rpascual@ing.puc.cl