A proposal for a standard framework for simulating and modeling manufacturing systems

Process efficiency is definitively a critical factor for manufacturing enterprises and the literature review clearly shows how researchers and operations managers consider simulation as a useful tool to study and optimize production processes. Nevertheless, even the studies that celebrate the simulation as the best approach for analyzing, designing and improving manufacturing processes, highlight some important limits that prevent the diffusion of simulation tools outside universities and research centers boundaries. The literature review suggested to concentrate on the design of a new modeling framework for simulating manufacturing processes that implements a structure and a working logic much closer to real production systems. This paper presents some key elements for developing a standard framework for simulating and modeling manufacturing systems, showing how a different modeling approach can allow to reproduce the actual dynamics of a generic production process, natively replicating both information flow and physical material flow. Snapshot of a simulation tool, still in development, are presented as well.