Title: Dynamic analysis of manufacturing cells: a dedicated simulation library and an empirical simulation study

Authors: Ana Luísa F.A. Ramos; José António V. Ferreira

Addresses: GOVCOPP – Department of Economics, Management and Industrial Engineering, University of Aveiro, Campo de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal ' GOVCOPP – Department of Economics, Management and Industrial Engineering, University of Aveiro, Campo de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal

Abstract: The design of cellular manufacturing systems (CMS) is a complex decision process that, in general, has to be decomposed into several sub-problems. Analytical techniques have been used to tackle each of these sub-problems individually but its usage is limited when designing real-world CMS. Simulation tools enable the decision maker to capture the dynamic nature of CMS allowing the test of different designs and their evaluation through a wide set of performance measures. This research describes the structural modelling and implementation of a simulation template (simulation library) for the dynamic analysis of cellular manufacturing systems and illustrates its utilisation in the development of a real simulation study. The template was modelled using object-oriented concepts and some of its components were implemented in the simulation software Arena®. The utilisation of the template in real CMS scenarios is allowing its validation and its continuous enhancement. [Received 16 January 2012; Revised 14 March 2012; Accepted 27 April 2012]

Keywords: cellular manufacturing systems; CMS design; empirical study; industrial engineering; object-oriented modelling; OOM; performance measures; real scenarios; simulation; template; unified modelling language; UML; manufacturing cells.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIE.2013.058393

European Journal of Industrial Engineering, 2013 Vol.7 No.6, pp.704 - 728

Published online: 28 Feb 2014 *

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