A New Approach for Simulation and Modeling of Autonomous Production Processes

In a world of rapid change, production companies are faced with major challenges. They have to deal quickly to an increase in competition and individual customer requests. New technologies and organizational structures like RFID or decentralized and real-time based production control can handle these challenges. The analysis of a production process and the selection of appropriate technical solutions often proves to be difficult and cost intensive. Previous simulation approaches are frequently combined with high effort in order to state credible propositions regarding suitability and economic efficiency. This paper presents a new opportunity towards overcoming these disadvantages. The approaches of computer-based simulation and model factories are combined into a new simulation approach with reduced effort. For the purpose of documentation of simulated processes the Value Stream Design method is extended towards the requirements resulting from autonomous production control. For this purpose additional symbolism, data dictionaries and key figures are introduced.