Role Based Modelling Approach to Designing Multi-product Systems

A new approach to modelling roles in manufacturing organisations is described. Many companies seek to manufacture a variety of products with common resources. Hence complex decision making is required when seeking to match suitable human and technical resource systems to processes and workflows. The new approach uses enterprise modelling to explicitly define functional and flexibility competencies that must be possessed by suitable role holders. Also described is how causal loop modelling can be used to reason about dependencies between different role attributes. The approach is targeted at the design and application of simulation models that enable relative performance comparisons (such as work throughout, lead-time and process costs) to be made and to show how performance is affected by different role decompositions and resourcing policies. The approach is illustrated with reference to a case study furniture making company.