Model-Driven Performance Analysis of Reconfigurable Conveyor Systems Used in Material Handling Applications

Reconfigurable conveyors are increasingly being adopted in multiple industrial sectors for their immense flexibility in adapting to new products and product lines. Before modifying the layout of the conveyor system for the new product line, however, engineers and layout planners must be able to answer many questions about the system, such as maximum sustainable rate of flow of goods, prioritization among goods, and tolerances of failures. Any analysis capability that provides answers to these questions must account for both the physical and cyber artifacts of the reconfigurable system all at once. Moreover, the same system should enable the stakeholders to seamlessly change the layouts and be able to analyze the pros and cons of the layouts. This paper addresses these challenges by presenting a model-driven analysis tool that provides three important capabilities. First, a domain-specific modeling language provides the stakeholders with intuitive artifacts to model conveyor layouts. Second, an analysis engine embedded within the model-driven tool provides an accurate simulation of the modeled conveyor system accounting for both the physical and cyber issues. Third, generative capabilities within the tool help to automate the analysis process. The merits of our model-driven analysis tool are evaluated in the context of an example conveyor topology.