Simulation based approach to modeling product and process interactions

Summary form only as given. The major corporate goals of any enterprise are to make more profit, increase its market share and provide workforce stability among others. To achieve these goals in a global, highly dynamic and very competitive environment, it is absolutely necessary that a company keeps on enlarging its technological, systems and methodology envelope to minimize unit cost, reduce lead time and improve quality of products right at the product development stage. To accomplish these tasks, some innovative technologies, methodologies and systems have to be developed and integrated. For these things to happen, it is necessary that one understands the underlying phenomenon of product development. In this paper, the authors' objectives are to capture the product process interactions. They study the impact of various product design and process alternatives on cost, quality and lead time. For this purpose, they develop a simulation model which is coded in SIMAN. They illustrate the concepts using a case study of a journal bearing system.