Our Simulation Techniques for Model Reusability

The Factory Design for a Flexible Simulation Model

A model of a virtual factory is defined according to the diagram below. It consists of 4 main so called areas: layout, material, procedures and resources (people including). All these areas are interlinked with each other, which means that by expanding or limiting one area it automatically updates operations of the other areas. Each of the 4 areas includes a lot of subsections, for example material includes raw material, WIP and products; resources include machines, various transport means as well as staff. The resources have in turn their specific requirements and schedules. The layout with positions of all objects playing role in the virtual factory is generated automatically.

Manufacturing model diagram

An important requirement for such modeling is a good access to accurate data: layout, production, order, raw material, shipment and many others. Such data is defined in databases but also can be generated within some reasonable constraints. A potential source of data is Enterprise Management System (ERP) and Manufacturing Execution System, SAP or similar.

The free path network

The free path network was described in the article at the WSC 2006 conference in San Francisco by Michal Stec from SimulateFirst. Please see the full paper for details.