Quantification of a System Dynamics Model for Optimized Failure Management in Manual Assembly

Abstract

Companies have only limited resources to carry out value-adding activities. In order to achieve high quality requirements, the goal-oriented and efficient handling of failure incidents is a competence that must be emphasized. However, the activities associated with this represent an additional effort that consumes part of the resources available. For this reason, it is important to optimally coordinate the value-adding processes of service creation on the one hand and the processes of failure management on the other. Accordingly, the objective of this paper is to program a simulation model for an optimized failure management in manual assembly, which transforms the failure management from traditionally experience-based to model-based. To achieve this objective, the consideration of the interactions between the failure management process and operational activities during the production process is essential. However, in current literature, interactions between production and failure management still lack detailed descriptions. Thus, both disciplines are often considered and optimized in isolation. Therefore, an advanced System Dynamics Model representing manual assembly processes with 23 elementsinvolved is constructed and applied to indicate the interactions between production and failure management. This enables the optimized configuration of the failure management activities depending on the circumstances to be taken into account. According to the generated model, a generic process module is programmed and test runs are performed to assess the model behaviour’s plausibility. The programmed System Dynamics model is implemented and validated in a use case of a manual assembly line consisting of two assembly stations. For this purpose, the generated process model is linked to the production chain of the use case and parameterized accordingly. This procedure demonstrates that the model can be used to derive general recommendations for action in order to realize an optimized design of failure management activities.