Computer-Aided Manufacturing Simulation (CAMS) Generation for Interactive Analysis, the concepts, techniques, and issues

Abstract

Simulation model is usually developed as a one-time use analytical model by a system analyst (usually from external firm) rather than for a routine and interactive use by a shop floor engineer. This is because it usually takes longer time to generate a result from the simulation, and the simulation model of manufacturing system is usually too sophisticated and time-consuming to use as an interactive tool by the manufacturing/production engineer. A CAMS reduces this complication by encapsulating the 'complicated-logic' and automating the 'tedious data-acquisition' with a more userfriendly interface like a spreadsheet or database input form. This paper describes how CAMS can automatically generate a simulation model; specifically, techniques and issues to structure the model to hide those tasks, so that it is a user-friendly interactive decision support with minimal amount of automation code. The paper concludes with a capacity analysis example from the real industry.