High performance simulation in quasi-continuous manufacturing plants

Though the quality of discrete simulation software packages is high, most are aimed at systems in which discrete objects change state as they move from work-station to work-station. This generic model is a good fit for some manufacturing, for example, much automotive production. However is not well suited to very high-speed quasi-continuous manufacturing as found in the food and drinks industry. LanSkim is a prototype PC-based package designed for these applications. It is simple to use and runs very fast but is insufficiently detailed for all purposes. Adding full detail would make the simulations run very slowly, hence we examine the use of parallel computation to allow increased level of detail. We describe Lan-WARPED, based on WARPED, which is a parallel simulation models of such plant.