COMPARISON OF MANUFACTURING SYSTEM CONFIGURATIONS USING SIMULATION CYCLE TIME AND THROUGHPUT PLOTS

摘要

Given the requirements and the design space, multiple alternative system configurations may be generated that have to be evaluated to select the best. Simulation based performance analysis is an indispensable method to accomplish such tasks particularly to complex systems as manufacturing systems which may not be analyzed appropriately by other methods. For systems with significant variability within or operating in a variable condition, then- performance is non-linearly and adversely affected. Performance plots such as cycle time and throughput plots are convenient way of capturing and summarizing the system dynamic performance and hence is a suitable way to systematically compare. In this paper, a simulation-based experiment is presented to compare systems with variability using their steady state cycle time and throughput.