A simulation tool for complex assembly lines with multi-skilled resources

Abstract

The focus areas of our research are simulation and optimization of complex assembly lines for heavy machinery (airplanes, turbines, industrial machines etc.). These production facilities have several specific characteristics: many isolated project networks with precedence constraints and thousands of multi-mode activities, time-bounds for activities and projects, many priority rules, limited numbers of multi-skilled resources with individual shift regimes, internal and subcontracted personnel, and resource locking rules. Formally, it is defined as a Multi-Mode Resource-Constrained Multi-Project Scheduling Problem with activity splitting. A promising way of dealing with problems in this domain is simulation-based optimization. In this paper, we introduce a specific custom-built simulator designed for this problem domain. The tool supports a variety of real-world extensions and dedicated behavior which usually comes at enormous runtime and development cost when it has to be built into a commercial off-the-shelf simulation tool.

A model-driven approach to interoperability between simulation and optimization for production and logistics systems

“…Simulation run-time efficiency challenges are also widely recognized [23,40,41]. Specialized formalisms, abstractions, or tools can reduce simulation execution time compared to general purpose simulation tools [42][43][44][45]. Innovations, such as domain-specific simulators, could benefit from basing method/tools on a standard system model or analysis abstraction, which would make it easier to integrate with other models.…”

Investigation Of Genetic Operators And Priority Heuristics for Simulation Based Optimization Of Multi-Mode Resource Constrained Multi-Project Scheduling Problems (MMRCMPSP)

“…Platform Simulation based optimization is widely used to get fast optimized solutions in large search spaces such as for the above described problem class. A platform which implements this theory was developed by Angelidis et al (2013) and is called SBOP (simulation based optimization platform). The optimization cycle is shown in figure 3.…”

Evaluating Multiskilling in Residential Construction Projects Using Regional Industry Simulation

“…Multiskilling (Carley et al 2003;Nasirian et al 2019a; is an approach in which work resources (in this case, construction tradesmen) are trained to complete larger sections of the work process. This approach creates redundancy in the laborforce (Angelidis et al 2013;Eitzen et al 2004), making production systems more flexible. For the purposes of construction, by training workers to carry out more work packages than they currently do in their hyper-specialized trades, it may be possible to unify trades that were previously separate into teams that can be deployed together as a team to serve as "work cell", rapidly completing the work on a given work location by removing the waiting times between the arrivals of the formerly separate crews.…”