Identifying flows in the long cycle manufacturing process

The paper reviews work in progress on modeling efforts of a manufacturing process for a crankcase of a diesel marine engine. Complexity of such a product with multiple customization opportunities and a long production cycle define a low-volume, asynchronous process with many interactions. Traditional modeling tools, suitable for high volume production where consecutively produced items do not interact with each other do not suffice to determine process dynamics and access to critical resources. An approach based on IDEF0 and CIMOSA architecture is utilized. Given process model, its further analysis can be conducted with the aim of flow improvement and guaranteed access to critical resources. The model will also be used as a basis of Process Flow Logic Machine control model.