The development of a visual interactive simulation of packaging flow lines

The design and implementation of new manufacturing processes or the reconfiguration/reuse of existing machines is a multidisciplinary activity. The introduction and modification of processes requires input from a variety of people with disparate skills, backgrounds, responsibilities and requirements. In addition, the trend towards globalization of businesses has resulted in collaborative projects involving domain experts who speak different languages and originate from different cultural backgrounds. Clearly effective communication via common representations is essential in such projects. A visual interactive simulation that can easily be modified (i.e. reconfigured, extended or reused) is an effective method of providing a common representation for personnel involved in the design and implementation of manufacturing processes. In this paper the development of a visual interactive simulation is discussed with regards to the problem of investigating the operation and interoperation of a number of work-stations that comprise a beverage can production flow line. A consortium of European partners was involved in the project to determine the opportunities to increase the efficiency of the current operation with respect to material usage and machine operational efficiency.