Manufacturing process management using a flexible modeling and simulation approach

The focus of this paper is a manufacturing system placed in Calabria (Italy) which produces high pressure hydraulic hoses. The objective is to implement a simulator to be used both for carrying out specific analysis devoted to increase system efficiency and for supporting the manufacturing process management (implementation of all the features required for using real time the simulator). After the modeling phase, the simulation model has been validated comparing simulation results with real system performances. In this paper the authors test tool potentials investigating system behavior under different scenarios obtained varying manufacturing departments configuration. The utilization degree of each manufacturing department and its daily production measure system performance.