Short Term Scheduling in Electronics Manufacturing using Discrete-Event Simulation

This paper describes how Discrete-Event simulation can be used in production optimization of electronics assembly lines where a lot of decisions concerning production are currently still taken only based on workers experience. Interview of those workers however often shows a lack of understanding of the parameters affecting production. In some cases, choices that are made can even be justified by untrue beliefs. It is quite common that notions such as bottlenecks and their impact on overall line capacity are ignored. For this reason, this work focused on how discrete-event simulation could be used to improve production in electronics manufacturing by providing a better understanding of the production environment. It can also be used in a straight forward way to test different scenarios for improvement or it can provide information for designing new production facilities. In the case study presented in this paper, different scheduling policies have been proposed and results have been compared according to predefined optimization targets.