Facilitating the working process and documentation of DES projects

Abstract: Background: Following a growing global competition, complexity, flexibility and product variability of manufacturing systems are increasing. This has led to improvement projects becoming more difficult to carry out. Discrete event simulation (DES) has in literature been identified as having the capability to solve these challenges, but as complexity of a manufacturing system increases so does also the complexity of the DES project. At the same time, the increased dynamic of manufacturing systems requires quicker analysis of improvement projects. This leads to a situation of DES projects having to be carried out on more complex system with shorter project lead time than before. Purpose: Given the stated situation of having to run more complex DES projects even faster than before, this study aimed to: 1. get an understanding of the process used for working with DES projects, 2. understand what underlying steps have the potential to be facilitated and 3. make an attempt to facilitate working with these with the aim of reducing project lead time. Methodology: In order to achieve stated purpose a literature study was carried out, resulting in a general framework aimed at facilitating the first steps of the DES project process. The framework was then tested and evaluated in a single case study and developed further into a final version. Conclusion: Following the literature study it was concluded that the five first steps of the DES project process were the most general and had the most potential to be facilitated by a general framework. The final version of the framework consisted of a three step method; 1. System description 2. Visualisation and data collection 3. Model translation Keywords: Discrete event simulation, facilitation of the DES project process, DES framework, simulation of complex manufacturing systems, reducing simulation project lead time