SME-friendly simulation tool presented at the ASIM conference in Dresden
How do my operational planning decisions affect delivery reliability, lead time and other KPIs? What happens if I schedule more or fewer employees in a production area? These are exactly the kinds of questions that can be analyzed and answered through simulation without risk. Modern production systems consist of many dynamically interacting elements and can quickly become overwhelming for production planners. A simulation model not only helps create a better understanding of relationships within production but also enables advanced investigations of different planning and control strategies.
As part of the PrOPPlan research project, we are developing a free application that allows interested production planners from small and medium-sized enterprises to experiment with simulations and different optimization approaches. Our colleague Mikhail Polikarpov had the opportunity to present the development progress on September 25 in Dresden in a technical contribution for an audience of practitioners, developers and researchers. The focus was on the obstacles faced by industrial users, especially from smaller companies, and on how the potential of various optimization approaches (including AI) can be transferred into practice. In our view, and according to our industrial partners, an interactive application that allows users to experiment playfully with the technology can once again make it clear how strongly planning decisions impact the economic outcome of production.
The ASIM conference in Dresden, with more than 100 participants, was a perfect platform for presenting the development and the first experimental results using both classical planning heuristics and learning AI models—all tested within a unified simulation framework of the developed application. The exchange with like-minded representatives from academia and industry, all facing related challenges, was extremely insightful and inspiring. We thank ASIM for this excellent opportunity.
If you find this topic interesting and would like to join a project-related meeting with the consortium later this year, please get in touch with our colleague Mikhail Polikarpov (mikhail.polikarpov@tu-dortmund)—we look forward to your input!
GitHub repository containing the latest version of the simulation tool