Simulation investigational method for intermittent production systems

Abstract

Nowadays, production system process improvement is going through sweeping changes. The trends include an increase in the number of product variants to be produced, as well as the reduction of the production's lead time. These trends were induced by new devices of the industry's 4.0, namely the Internet of Things and cyber physical systems. The companies have been applying intermittent production systems (job production, batch production) in increasing number because of the increase in the number of product variants. Consequently, increasing the efficiency of these systems has become especially important. The aim of development in the long term - not achievable in many cases - is the realisation of unique production with mass production's productivity and specific cost. The improvement of complex production systems can be realized efficiently only through simulation modeling. The intermittent production systems' standardized simulation investigational method has not elaborated so far. In this paper I will introduce a simulation investigational method conception for complex system improvement and also present a practical example in connection with the elaborated method.