An object-oriented intelligent design tool to aid the design of manufacturing systems

Manufacturing systems design appears to be an excellent area for applying a rtificial intelligence (Al), object-oriented techniques and computer simula tion methods, however, so far there have been limited research on integrati ng Al, object-oriented techniques and simulation techniques for manufacturi ng systems design. In this paper, an integrated approach for manufacturing systems design is introduced which consists of the developing and testing o f alternative designs using an integrated system SBDSS. SBDSS mainly consis ts of two subsystems, Object Library Modeler and Simulation Engine with its manager. Using SBDSS, decision makers (DMs) can evaluate alternatives in m anufacturing and production, e.g. annual production plan under certain circ umstances through scenario simulations. DMs can also test a set of virtual organizations reflecting business process reengineering before a real chang e is made, as well as testing a virtual manufacturing process for a newly d esigned product, The paper describes three possible application cases inclu ding centralized versus decentralized organizational structure, global goal -oriented planning and highly integrated information systems to illustrate the flexibility of the system. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights re served.