Simulation of distributed manufacturing enterprises: a new approach

The globalization of markets and world-wide competition forces manufacturing enterprises to enter into alliances leading to the creation of distributed manufacturing enterprises. Before forming a partnership it is essential to evaluate viability of proposed enterprise as well as how a company´s operations are affected by the proposed virtual enterprise. Distributed simulation provides an attractive tool to make decisions on such situations. However, due to its complexity and high cost distributed simulation failed to gain a wide acceptance from industrial users. We present a new approach for distributed manufacturing simulation (DMS) including a formal methodology for DMS and, implementation approach using current commercial simulation software, employing widely available and cost effective technologies. The main objective of this work is to promote the use of distributed simulation particularly in distributed manufacturing by making it fast to develop and less complicated for implementation.