Automatic Model Initialization for Real-Time Decision Support

The research presented in this paper reports on a shop-floor simulation interface (SFSI) which utilizes an integrated bar code-based data acquisition system to improve the real-time performance of an existing simulation-based decision support system and expand its capabilities to shop-floor monitoring and prediction. SFSI utilizes the data acquisition system to detect any shop-floor problem, and to update and initialize simulation models to the current shop-floor status. SFSI can process the simulation model, determine its initial conditions' requirements, retrieve the required information from the data acquisition system, and update the simulation model. This allows the simulation to start with exact current system conditions eliminating the need for time consuming warm-up periods, thus improving the system's accuracy and real-time performance.