A simulation tool for modelling and optimization of a job-shop production system

This study carries out an analysis of the machinery department of a main Italian company, which operates as a manufacturer of plants for the food industry. The analysis targets expressively the improvement of the total shop floor time of the jobs in the department and is supported by a simulation model developed under SIMUL8TM. Thanks to the model, the dispatching rule currently used by the company to schedule the jobs to be manufactured in the department was compared to additional 6 scheduling strategies, to evaluate potential improvements. The results obtained have shown that the most remaining operations (MROP) rule returns the most interesting results in terms of total shop floor time for the jobs examined. The outcomes of this paper could be useful to the targeted company to evaluate the implementation of alternative dispatching rules to schedule the jobs.