A Novel Logic and Approach to Speed up Simulation and Analysis of Production Systems

The paper describes a novel logic to model, simulate and analyze production systems using Discrete Event Simulation tools. An adaptable and flexible DES model has been developed to represent different manufacturing environments. The goal of the proposed DES-based parametric model is to offer to industrial analysts a compact, fast and easy way to configure and use decision support tools. The logic is based on elementary structures with a vertical multilayer architecture that permits entities to access and loop in multiple times. Since it has been assumed manufacturing systems are combination of elementary parts, the architecture of the model becomes quite simple since representing few structures only, and the simulation of heterogeneous systems is the result of as many iterations as needed by a user. This approach is adaptable both to SMEs and large companies, permitting to avoid the use of dedicated SW and allocated skilled person.