A Global Method for Modelling and Performance Analysis of Production Flows

In our increasingly competitive world, today companies are implementing improvement strategies in every department and, in particular, in their manufacturing systems. This paper discusses the use of a global method based on a knowledge-based approach for the development of a software tool for modelling and analysis of production flows. This tool will help promote the companies competitiveness by guaranteeing the efficiency of their production lines and, therefore, the quality and traceability of the manufactured products. Different kind of techniques will be used: graphic representation of the production, identification of specific behaviour and research of correlations among events on the production line. Most of these techniques are based on statistic and probabilistic analyses.