MANUFACTURING AND MATERIAL HANDLING 7.

Production schedules
SIMULATIONS
a) Made-to-stock
Manufacturing and Material Handling Simulations b) Made-to-order
Customer order
As do all modeling projects, manufacturing Line items and quantities
and material handling simulation projects need to
8. Production control
address the issue of scope and level of detail.
Consider scope as analogous to breadth and level of a. Assignment of jobs to work areas
detail as analogous to depth. b. Task selection at workcenters
c. Routing decisions
The proper scope and level of details should
be determined by the objective of the study and the 9. Supplies
questions being asked.
a) Ordering
On the other hand, level of detail could be b) Receipt and storage
restrained by the availability of input data and the c) Delivery to workcenters
knowledge of how system components work.
10. Storage
MODELS OF MANUFACTURING SYSTEM
a. Supplies
Models of manufacturing systems might have b. Spare parts
to take into account a number of characteristics of c. Work-in-process (WIP)
such systems, including some of the following: d. Finished goods

1. Physical layout 11. Packing and shipping

2. Labor a. Order consolidation

b. Paperwork
a. Shift schedule c. Loading of trailers
b. Job duties and certification
MODELS OF MATERIAL HANDLING SYSTEMS
3. Equipment
In manufacturing systems, it is not unusual for
a. Rates and capacities
80 to 50% of an item’s total time in system to be
b. Breakdowns
expended on material handling or on waiting for
Time to failure
material handling to occur.
Time to repair
Resources needed for repair This Work-in-progress represents a vast
investment, and reductions in WIP and associated
4. Maintenance
delays can result in large cost savings. Therefore, for
a. Preventive maintenance (PM) schedule some studies, detailed material-handling simulations
b. Time and resources required are cost effective.
c. Tooling and fixtures
Storage systems
5. Work centers
a) Pallet storage
a) Processing b) Case storage
b) Assembly c) Small-part storage (totes)
c) Disassembly d) Oversize items
e) Rack storage or block stacked
6. Product
f) Automated storage and retrieval systems
a. Product flow, routing and resources needed (AS/RS) with storage retrieval machines (SRM)
b. Bill of materials
GOALS AND PERFORMANCE MEASURES Modeling downtime and failures

The purpose of simulation is insight, not Unscheduled random downtimes can have a
numbers. major effect on the performance of manufacturing
systems. Many authors have discussed the proper
Those who purchase and use simulation
modeling of downtime data.
software and services want to gain insight and
understanding into how a new or modified system will There are a number of alternatives for modeling
work. random unscheduled downtime, some better than the
others:
Will it meet throughput expectations? What
happens to response time at peak periods? 1. Ignore it
2. Do not model it explicitly, but increase
Is the system resilient to short-term surges?
processing times in appropriate proportion
What is the recovery time when short-term surges
3. Use constant values for the time to failure and
causes congestion and queueing?
time to repair
Simulation are expected to provide numeric 4. Use statistical distribution for time to failure
measures of performance, such as throughput under and time to repair
a given set of conditions, but the major benefit of
Alternative one (1) is not the suggested general
simulation comes from the insight and understanding
approach. This is certainly an irresponsible modeling
gained regarding system operations.
technique if downtimes have an impact on the results,
The major goals of manufacturing-simulation as they do in almost all situations. One situation in
model are to identify problem areas and quantify which ignoring downtimes could be appropriate, with
system performance. Common measures of system full knowledge of the customer, is to leave out the
performance include the following: catastrophic downtimes that occur rarely and leave a
production plant or line for a long period of time.
• Throughput under average and peak loads;
• System Cycle time (how long it takes to In other words, the model would incorporate
produce one part); normal downtimes but ignore those catastrophic
• Utilization of resources, labor and machines; downtimes, such as general power failures, snow
• Bottlenecks choke points; storms, cyclones and hurricanes, that occur rarely,
• Queueing at work locations; but stop all production when they occur.
• Queueing and delays caused by material- The second possibility, to factor into the model
handling devices and systems; the effect of downtimes by adjusting processing times
• WIP storage needs; applied to each job or part, might be an acceptable
• Staffing requirement; approximation under limited circumstances. If each
• Effectiveness of scheduling systems; job or part is subjected to a large number of small
• Effectiveness of control systems; delays associated with downtime of equipment or
tools, then the total of such delays may be added to
Issues in manufacturing and material-handling
the pure processing time to arrive at an adjusted
simulations
processing time.
There are a number of modeling issues If total delay time and pure processing time
especially important for the achievement of accurate are random in nature, then an appropriate statistical
and valid simulation models of manufacturing and distribution should be used for the total adjusted
material-handling systems. Two of these issues are processing time. If the pure processing time is
the proper modeling of downtimes and whether, for constant while the total delay time in one cycle is
some inputs, to use actual system data or a statistical random and variable, it is almost never accurate to
model of those inputs. adjust the processing time by a constant factor.
 The third possibility, using constant durations
for time to failure and time to repair, might be
appropriate when, for example the downtime is
actually due to preventive maintenance that is on a
fixed schedule.

In almost all other circumstances, the fourth

possibility, modeling time to failure and time to repair
by appropriate statistical distribution when data is
lacking, a reasonable assumption based on the
physical nature of the causes of downtimes.

Time to failure

Time to failure can be measured in a number of

different ways

1. By wall-clock time;
2. By machine or equipment busy time;
3. By number of cycle times;
4. By number of items produced.

Breakdown/Failure

Breakdowns or failures can be based on

clock time, actual usage or cycles. Note that the word
breakdown or failure is used, even though preventive
maintenance could be the reason for a downtime. As
mentioned, breakdowns or failures can be
probabilistic or deterministic in duration.

Actual usage breakdown are based on time during

which the resources is used.

Clock-time breakdowns might be associated with

scheduled maintenance.

Cycle breakdown or failures are based on the

number of times the resources is used.

Another issue is what happens to a part at a

machine when the breakdown or failure occurs.
Possibilities include scrapping the part, rework, or
simply continuing processing after repair. In some
cases-for example, when the preventive maintenance
is due- the part in the machine may complete
processing before the repair (or maintenance activity)
begins.

1. As a pure time delay (no resources required);

2. As a wait time for a resource (e.g.,
maintenance person) plus a time delay for
actual repair.