SIMULATION MODELING AND ANALYSIS

WITH ARENA

T. Altiok and B. Melamed

Chapter 11
Modeling of Production Lines

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Chapter 11
Production Lines: Push Regime
Operator
Outgoing
Material
Storage
...
Machinery

Incoming
Workstation 1 Workstation 2 Material Workstation K
Storage

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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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Chapter 11
 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 Capping Labeling Sealing Carton
6.5 seconds 5 seconds 8 seconds 5 seconds 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 B2 M2 B3 BK MK
1 2 K
N2 N3 NK

• 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)

• Then, the utilization of Mi is given by

P (U ) = 1 - P (I ) - P (B ) - P (D )
i i i i
• 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[X i ] , resulting in throughput
P (U )
o = i
i E[X ]
i
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Chapter 11
 Understanding System Behavior
• The line throughput should be the same for all
workstations, and equal to the slowest workstation,
namely,
1/8 = 0.525 units/second
• The throughput of the capping station is
o = 0.625 / 5 = 0.125 units/second

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Chapter 11
 Verification Via Little’s formula
• For the entire system, the average total number of jobs
in the buffers and in service is given by
N s = 15.5448 + 4.8615 + 4.8701+1.0 + 0.9995 + 0.9999 + 0.6249 + 0.7498
= 29.6508

• Little’s formula is given by

N s = o Fs = 239.79×0.125 = 29.9738

• The two values are sufficiently close

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Chapter 11
 Sensitivity Analysis
• Since Labeling is the slowest and Capping is the one blocked
most of the time, let us increase their buffers

• 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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Chapter 11
 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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Chapter 11
 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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Chapter 11
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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Chapter 11
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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Chapter 11