Development of a Data-Driven Simulation Model for an Assembly-To-Order System

This paper presents the development of a simulation model for an Assembly-To-Order (ATO) system. The model can be used to identify potential conflicts or bottlenecks in the system, to assist in the decision-making process, and to improve on the existing manual orders planning process. The process flow in the ATO system is complex as the system needs to handle a variety of products, different process routings, high product mix, and shared resources. The simulation model is developed using an existing commercial software platform. The model is designed to be fully data-driven, with sets of input and output data schema tables. This approach will make the simulation modeling more accessible to manufacturing community, and enable integration to factory's Manufacturing Execution System (MES) for real-time data and Real Time Dashboard (RTD) for displaying multiple scenarios of simulation results. The integration is accomplished through a central database server via Application Programming Interface (API).