As part of an ABB training program, two manufacturing engineers introduced a manufacturing facility to the benefits of modeling and simulation. The project goal was to evaluate a proposed manufacturing cell for a newly developed product. The engineers identified numerous layout improvements, but the analysis showed significant improvements in cycle time would still be needed to meet aggressive throughput targets. In addition to illustrating the use of deterministic modeling as a precursor to simulation, this paper also highlights lessons learned by these first-time simulation users.
Ron Shady, Gary Spake, F. Bradley Armstrong