Contribution of simulation to the optimization of inspection plans for multi-stage manufacturing systems

In this paper we develop a new mathematical model to optimize inspection plans for multi-stage manufacturing systems with possible misclassification errors. The presented model minimizes total inspection related costs while still assuring a required output quality. Because of the complexity of the proposed mathematical model, a simulation algorithm is presented to model the multistage manufacturing system subject to inspection and to estimate the resulting inspection costs. We use the popular Arena simulation software to implement our simulation algorithm and then we utilize OptQuest, Arena’s builtin optimization package, to find the optimal inspection plan. Finally, a numerical example is presented and simulation experiments are also conducted in order to examine the effects of several model parameters.