Modeling and simulating operating policies for manufacturing cells

This paper describes the development of a simulation system designed to study operating policies for discrete-part, batch-oriented manufacturing cells. Policies consist of protocols for controlling the flow of parts and workers. The need for a simulator arises from strong interactions between the configuration of system resources, part mix, worker assignment rules, and part dispatching rules. This makes analytical modeling and determination of effective universal design and operating rules difficult. The simulator has its basis in a general framework which can be used to describe operating policies. A policy is characterized by assigning appropriate values to a set of descriptive parameters. The system configuration is described by one set of parameters and operating policies by another. The framework representation of policies facilitates the development of the simulator through the application of design and analysis methods based on the Object-Oriented Programming paradigm.