SIMULATION MODELING AND ANALYSIS WITH ARENA

T. Altiok and B. Melamed

Chapter 11 Modeling of Production Lines

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Production Lines: Push Regime

Operator Outgoing Material Storage

...
Workstation K

Machinery Incoming Material Storage

Workstation 1

Workstation 2

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Operational features
Blocking (downstream buffer full)
propagating upstream

Starvation (upstream buffer empty)

propagating downstream

Machines are unproductive (idle) during blocking and starvation

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Design of Production Lines: Resource Allocation Problems

Workload allocation
Amount of work at each workstation

Buffer capacity allocation

Target WIP (work in-process) levels at each workstation

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Performance Measures of Interest

Average throughput (work units/unit time) Average inventory levels in buffers (work units) Downtime probabilities Blocking probabilities at bottleneck workstations Average system flow times (time units/job) Manufacturing lead times (time units/job)

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Example: A Packaging Line

Filling
6.5 seconds

Capping
5 seconds

Labeling
8 seconds

Sealing
5 seconds

Carton Packing
6 seconds

System parameters:
Buffers are 5 units of capacity Processing times are fixed (deterministic)

Consequently,
Labeling is the slowest workstation Workstations upstream of labeling will experience blocking Workstations downstream of labeling will experience no blocking and jobs will not wait in the buffer after labeling We expect that the throughput will be 1/8, that is, the rate of slowest workstation
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Packaging Line Arena Model

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Queue Statistics

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Queue Statistics (Cont.)

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Queue Statistics (Cont.)

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Queue Statistics (Cont.)

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Resources Statistics

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User Specified Statistics

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User Specified Statistics (Cont.)

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Model Verification for Production Lines

M1 1 B2 N2 M2 2 B3 N3 BK N K MK K

Probabilities of machine status

Pi (I ) is the probability that M is idle i Pi (B ) is the probability that M is blocked i Pi (D) is the probability that Mi is down Pi (U ) is the probability that Mi is up (producing) Mi

Then, the utilization of

i

is given by
i i i

P (U ) = 1 P (I ) P (B ) P (D)

this indicating that Mi is in the up state when it is neither idle nor blocked nor down during the up state, Mi produces at rate 1/ E[Xi ] , resulting in throughput
o = i i E[X ]
i
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P (U )

Understanding System Behavior

The line throughput should be the same for all workstations, and equal to the slowest workstation, namely, 1/8 = 0.125 units/second The throughput of the sealer station is o = 0.625 / 5 = 0.125 units/second

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Verification Via Littles formula

For the entire system, the average total number of jobs in the buffers and in service is given by
Ns = 15.5448+ 4.8615+ 4.8701+1.0+0.9995+0.9999 + 0.6249+0.7498 = 29.6508

Littles formula is given by

Ns = oF s = 239.790.125 = 29.9738

The two values are sufficiently close

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Sensitivity Analysis
Since Labeling is the slowest and Capping is the one blocked
most of the time, let us increase their buffers
0.15 0.14 0.13 0.12 0.11 0.1 0 5 10 15

15 12 9 6 3 0 0 5 10 15 B uffer C apacity

250 200 150 100 50 0 5 10 15 B uffer C apacity

B uffer C apacity

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 11.12 Impact of simultaneously increasing the capping and labeling buffers on (a) throughput of S (b) average number in labeling buffer (c) mean flow time through S

Consequently, system throughput does not change, buffer content keeps increasing and system flow time keeps increasing Conclusion: When processing times are fixed and there is no randomness in the system, increasing the buffer is of no value
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Modeling Blocking Phenomena

Sequence of actions:
seize Filler delay for Filling Time hold NQ(Capping Process.queue) < 5 block job waits in the Hold queue Filler Blocked.Queue release Filler seize Capper

The estimate of the time-average probability

Pr(Filler is blocked) = total time Filler blocked queue is occupied total stimulation time

is obtained by the Time Persistent statistic

NQ(Filler Blocked. Queue)
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Alternative Modeling of Blocking

Model an intermediate buffer as a resource, i.e.
seize Capper delay seize Labeling Buffer (resource cap = 5) seize a unit of buffer blocked job remains in the queue release Capper seize Labeler release Labeling Buffer a unit of buffer is released when Labeler is seized

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Modeling Machine Failures

Failure Types:
operation-dependent failures operation-independent failures

Auto-states of an Arena Resource

Idle, Busy, Failed, Inactive

Long-run probabilities are collected via the Frequency option in the Statistics module

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Modeling Machine Failures (Cont.)

Failure module
Time-based failures (timed) Count-based stoppage (count) Uptime Downtime Uptime in this state (aging takes place in this state) States option of State Set links states to auto-states

and to failures/stoppages

Dialog box for the Failure module

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Failure Rules
The Preempt option starts a downtime by suspending the resource immediately on failure arrival, so that the remaining processing of the current unit will resume once the downtime is over The Wait option allows the current unit to finish processing, following which the resource is suspended and downtime begins The Ignore option starts the downtime after the current unit finishes processing, but only that portion of the downtime following unit completion is recorded (in contrast, the Wait option records the full downtime)
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Linking Failures to States

Dialog boxes for the StateSet module (left) and Filler resource States module (right)

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Linking States to Resources

Dialog box for failure declarations in the Resource module

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Impact of Buffers in Case of Failures

Buffers are particularly useful in case of machine failures as shock absorbers
buffering absorbs some of the negative impact of machine failure, by permitting continued processing for a while

On the other hand, buffering is not all that useful in high-speed manufacturing lines, where buffers may fill up quickly

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Estimating Sojourn Time Distributions

Arena fragment for estimating delay time probabilities in the Packer buffer

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Batch Processing
Batch serving resources are modeled using the Batch and Separate modules. Batching can be permanent or temporary

Dialog boxes for the Batch module (left) and Separate module (right)
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Batch-Modified Packaging Line

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Batch-Modified Packaging Line (Cont.)

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Batch-Modified Packaging Line (Cont.)

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Synchronization and Assembly

The main purpose of the Match module is to synchronize the movements of Arena entities It is also used for assembly by terminating all other departing entities from a Match module, except for one entity
Assembly Station Matching Buffers

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Assembly Operations
Assembly operations are modeled using the Match module

Match 1

A Match module (top) and its dialog box (bottom)

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