Simulation-Based Early Warning Systems as a Practical Approach for the Automotive Industry

Simulation-based early warning systems (SEWS) support proactive control of real material flow systems. In consequence of real or potential state changes, proactive control (unlike reactive control) makes foresighted and target-oriented acting possible. Starting from the definition of SEWS their architecture and the requirements for design of SEWS are discussed. The compliance with simulator-independency is one important facet. Basically, this is achieved by the use of Web services, XML and XSD (XML schema definition). One key component of SEWS are online simulation models which are initialized with the current system state of a real system. The utilization of RFID technology to generate information about current system states improves the quality of simulation-based forecasting. Example applications from the automotive industry show the benefits of SEWS