Virtual reality simulation of a mechanical assembly production line

This paper presents our work on the application of virtual reality simulation to the design of a production line for a mechanically-assembled product. The development of this simulation was undertaken as a part of the Manufacturing Simulation and Visualization Program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD. The major research problem is the partitioning and analysis of the assembly operation of the prototype product into different tasks and allocation of these tasks to different assembly workstations. Issues such as cycle times, material handling and assembly line balancing complicate the problem. This paper demonstrates the difficulties of using simulation modeling for concurrent graphical simulation of assembly operations and discrete event analysis of a production process in the same model. It also points out the need to speed up the modeling process and reduce the level of effort required in the construction of a simulation model.