Designing reusable simulation modules for electronics manufacturing systems

Developing simulation models for related problems in the same domain is generally a repetitive process. Such simulation models are similar in many aspects and have only minor differences. Modeling efforts can be reduced to a great extent through the development of domain specific modules or templates that encapsulate the domain-specific logic and hide many of the modeling details. We describe the development of such a domain-specific template for electronics assembly. In particular, the template focuses on the automated assembly of printed circuit boards. The template encompasses the complexity of the target domain and simplifies the model-building process. While this focuses on a language-neutral description of the template, specific experience with Arena is described.