A supply chain paradigm to model business pprocesses at the Y-12 national security complex

The NNSA´s Y-12 National Security Complex is a manufacturing facility operated by BWXT Y-12. Y-12´s missions include ensuring the US´ nuclear weapons deterrent, storing nuclear materials, and fueling US naval reactors. In order to understand the impacts of these diverse missions on its numerous functional divisions, Y-12 has relied on simulation modeling. Traditional discrete- event simulation modeling has proven to be an indispensable tool for Y-12; however, this paper will discuss Y-12´s use of a supply chain paradigm to model its entire business processes. The supply chain model executes very quickly and is versatile enough to model all of the nuances of Y-12´s complex business. It can model equipment, labor, facility, or other constraints and provides a rough-cut estimate of schedule compliance over many years (even decades). This paper describes how the model is implemented and presents simple results from a representative process.