Evaluation of different simulation approaches for modeling a custom build assembly line

With more market driven schedules in manufacturing, a custom build assembly environment to reduce lead times is a viable approach. This paper discusses using simulation to evaluate a custom build line with two different modeling philosophies: a detailed and a general approach to input time distributions. The detailed model uses separate build time distributions for basic production and each accessory; the general model uses one build time distribution for each station for total production based upon expected accessory percentages. An investigation and comparison of the two approaches is presented based upon experiments varying key environmental factors. The general model can substantially reduce the model code, reducing time and effort, and seems to be a promising approach under certain environmental conditions.