Integrating the CAD model with dynamic simulation: Simulation Data Exchange

Engineering Animation Inc. (EAI) has developed a number of intelligent CAD objects for facilities design. These objects allow the facility designer to design and modify the facility layout with minimal effort and tedious drafting duplication. Facility layouts that are designed by the facilities group often have to be dynamically simulated to prove the concept and to determine if the required throughput (jobs per hour) can be achieved. Traditionally this requires the simulation engineer to duplicate the CAD drawing in the simulation environment before being able to model it. This is also not a one-time duplication of work as the facility layout can go through numerous revisions before the final equipment configuration is determined. FactoryCAD(R) layout objects are embedded with simulation relevant data such as time to fail, time to repair, cycle times, scrap rates, speeds, etc. An intelligent extraction routine then exports object details such as type of object (machine, conveyor, buffer, etc.), object location, and other physical parameters, along with all simulation relevant data that had been previously embedded into the objects from the layout into a standardized ASCII text file. This will eliminate the need to recreate physical and even some run control information in the dynamic simulation package. It is proposed that the most effective data transfer would be to create a common data format (Simulation Data Exchange-SDX) that can serve as an input to the automatic generation of discrete event simulation models. The simulation model generates animation data that is subsequently available for dynamic viewing and analysis in the FactoryVIEW^TM environment