Modelling hybrid production systems through the ACD specification: a case study in the fibre-glass industry

This paper is aimed at formalising a model for hybrid production systems where the interactions between the continuous process parts and the manufacturing sub-systems are given by minor stoppages. The proposal is to represent the effects of the continuous process dynamics on discrete manufacturing sub-systems using autoregressive conditional duration models originally conceived to treat high-frequency and irregularly spaced financial transaction data. The proposed methodology has been tested on a real-life fibreglass production plant exploiting simulation techniques. The physical model of the furnace and spooling–bushing department has been run in two different conditions: (i) the fibre-glass breakings, i.e. minor stoppages, on the spooling–bushing machines are generated according to the proposed approach; (ii) historical fibre-glass breakings data are used.