material flow simulation

The following article describes an integrated method to calculate the investment and (cost-) effectiveness of a process optimisation using innovative techniques like RFID. It is based on the research project IdentProLog. Starting with analysing and optimizing processes it‘s possible to evaluate them with a method like activity-based-costing. The detailed information about process-times for each resource will be taken from a material flow simulation. Using this way its possible to create and format data with a high confidential level. Furthermore, it is possible to consider dependencies between technical resources, even in your investment analysis.

Shorter product lifecycles, customer-oriented production and raising variants of the manufactured goods are representative for today’s industries. One well-established method for planning, safeguarding and improvement of production processes is the material flow simulation. In order to cover all phases of the process development, a backward-simulation approach beside the usual method is needed. The generated simulation results are moreover to be integrated in “control centre”-views, wherefore a time-oriented execution of the simulation has to be added. This article shows some functions of the material flow simulator d³FACT insight, which already allows to execute simulation models in forward or backward direction, as well as a time-oriented simulation.