Manufacturing Simulation & Analysis of Automation Plants

An experimental simulation is performed using Showflow simulation software for layouts with varying number of M/Cs and operational times. The Showflow software consists of number of modules (Supporting tools) using which different flowpath problems can be solved. In the present work a straight line flowpath is considered for plant layouts with 2 to 10 M/Cs. Simulation runs are conducted for 2 cycles of AGV operation (cycle time is taken from experimental results of different plant layouts with single AGV) and for a fixed 10 hours operational time. Depending on the randomness of job entry at M/Cs and AGV, three probability distributions with uniform, normal and exponential inputs are considered. The simulation results include the throughput of AGV, utilisation values, average queue lengths and average waiting times. The simulation is extended for different operational times of the AGVS and the results are tabulated. These results are correlated and compared with those of analytical models and experimentation.