Coupling of assembly process planning and material flow simulation based on an unambiguous process graph

In recent years, the tasks and contents of production and assembly planning have become more and more complex leading companies to use IT tools to support the planning process. Furthermore, associated with decreasing product life times, planning times have to be reduced with unchanging or improved planning quality. Therefore, the digital factory has proven to be a valuable means to support the planning process. Still, its application in industrial practice is lacking because some basic problems are yet to be solved. To allow for an improved use of the digital factory, this paper deals with a novel approach towards the achievement of an adequate communication basis for digital factory applications. This approach allows for an automated generation of a material flow simulation model based on an unambiguous process graph and for the achievement of a bi-directional coupling of assembly process planning and material flow simulation