INTEGRATED BUSINESS MODELING TECHNIQUE FOR DECISION-SUPPORT IN THE MANUFACTURING ENVIRONMENT

This paper describes the development of an integrated modelling techni que for the evaluation of business strategies. The simulation-based te chnique is based on three levels; firstly, an innovative, easily confi gurable, manufacturing simulator; secondly an activity-based cost mode l; and thirdly, a high level strategic business model. The modular str ucture of the technique will allow the user to-choose whatever level o f modelling is needed for that particular application. The first level of the technique has been verified and validated with respect to both another modelling package and a real manufacturing facility. An overa ll interface has been developed, which will form the basis for configu ring all levels of the business model. The activity-based cost model c onstructed has been designed and developed to deal with such items as throughput, spoilage, etc. and also user defined variables, with an in built facility to deal with sparse data. This has also been validated with manual input of data and gave less than a 0.1% variation with cal culated operating costs. It is currently being integrated, via the int erface, to enable simultaneous configuration with the manufacturing si mulator.