Humanizing Labor Resource in a Discrete Event Manufacturing Simulation Software

摘要

Simulation is a decision making support tool very useful for the design and dimensioning of manufacturing plants. Although workmanship hand is largely employed in production systems, labor involved in the process is often modeled as an inanimate predictable resource (like machines, tools or equipment). In order to make simulation more realistic, this study applied ergonomics principles (circadian rhythm and rest pauses) to the labor resource of a software that is largely used in commercial applications. Results showed that this "humanization" impact the simulation results. Production outcomes from the circadian rhythm modeling were up to 7 % higher than the ones obtained with the standard PROMODEL modeling; the introduction of 5 min rest pauses increased productivity in less than 1 %. Overall, these results justify the development of computational routines able to represent "humans" and their interactions with the system in a more realistic manner.