A Computer Simulation of Steel Production Used as a Tool to Investigate Hierarchical Production Control,

摘要

The primary purpose of this research effort was to develop a simulation tool that modeled the steel mill environment and could be used to evaluate different production scheduling algorithms. This goal was accomplished by designing a model in GASP IV,FORTRAN based simulation language,that modeled the steel making process in a hierarchical fashion from the melt shops through the temper mill. The model was designed in a hierarchical fashion that is analogous to the hierarchical setup common in most modern steel making plants. The lowest level within the program,the process model,contains no scheduling logic and models solely the constraints of the steel making processes. The first level of control,level one,schedules product at each facility based on the queue preceeding it and is somewhat analogous to the manager in charge of a particular production facility. The second level of the hierarchy is analogous to the centralized production control facility and is concerned with master scheduling,order application and inventory control. These three levels work in harmony to model the steel producing processes and permit investigation into the effects of different scheduling stragegies. Portions of this document are not fully legible.