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Data driven production modeling and simulation of complex automobile

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 Computers in Industry 62 (2011) 765–775

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Computers in Industry
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compind

Data driven production modeling and simulation of complex automobile

general assembly plant
Junfeng Wang a,*, Qing Chang b, Guoxian Xiao c, Nan Wang a, Shiqi Li a
a
Department of Industrial and Manufacturing System Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, NY 11568, USA
c
Manufacturing Systems Research Lab, General Motors Research and Development Center, Warren, MI 48090, USA

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: Flexible manufacturing and customization has long been a topic in modern manufacturing society.
Received 13 July 2010 However, challenges still remain on the responsiveness of production system to the fluctuation of
Received in revised form 7 April 2011 market demand. In this paper, we developed a data driven simulation methodology to automatically
Accepted 23 May 2011
model a production system and rapidly modify the model corresponding to dynamic requirements and
Available online 25 June 2011
real time information. This methodology provides a ‘‘rapid prototyping’’ capability for production
system modeling and enables a quick analyzing and remodeling capability to respond to the fluctuation
Keywords:
of demands. The approach is developed and applied to an automotive general assembly plant with an
Data driven approach
online material handling system. A complete information model based on IDEF1X is constructed for this
Modeling and simulation
General assembly plant domain specific modeling and simulation. The main simulation modules for assembly line and material
Material handling system handling system of the plant floor are analyzed and a simulator is implemented in ARENA by SIMAN/VBA
program. The case study of an automotive assembly plant shows that the data driven approach enables
the modeling and simulation of the complex assembly plant in a ‘‘real-time’’ fashion and therefore
effectively improve the responsiveness and flexibility of the production line.
ß 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Today’s competitive market requires a production system
quickly respond to continuously changing demands and customer
needs. Although flexible manufacturing and customization has
long been a topic in modern manufacturing society, to improve a
manufacturing system’s responsiveness still remains a big
challenge in practice, especially for high investment and high
complexity manufacturing industries, such as automotive indus-
try. Due to the complexity of the automobile assembly production
process, it is difficult to quickly modify or scale a production plant
to accommodate market demands while maintaining highly
efficient operations so that the unit cost can be reduced [1,2].
In an automotive industry, it usually takes several years to
model hundreds of production lines for initial simulation studies.
During operation stage, it also takes several months for any
engineering changes, such as increasing number of stations or
buffers, or reducing number of operators. Traditional simulation
modeling method usually requires expert knowledge for develop-
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 27 87541034; fax: +86 27 87541458.
E-mail addresses: wangjf2000@163.com (J. Wang), qchang@nyit.edu (Q. Chang),
guoxian.xiao@gm.com (G. Xiao), phoebewong@163.com (N. Wang),
sqli@mail.hust.edu.cn (S. Li).
ing and modifying a simulation model, and it takes long time to
verify and validate the model. With the advance of IT technology,
more and more real-time data is available. Paradigm has evolved
from information visibility to performance visibility. How to
intelligently utilize the online data becomes a challenge. A possible
solution is to integrate the online data with simulation modeling
techniques so as to quickly model the system changes for scenario
studies and decision makings [3–5]. The development of real-time
data enabled, simulation-based problem-solving capability has
been a grand challenges in manufacturing industry [6].
The focus of this paper is to develop a data driven method for
modeling and simulation of complex manufacturing plant floor
system, which can be used for what-if analysis to investigate
different operation scenarios and optimizing production systems.
Particularly, we studied a typical automotive general assembly
(GA) plant and developed a data driven simulation method to
integrate assembly system with Just-in-Time (JIT) material
handling system (MHS). The computer simulation models of the
complex production process in the GA plant are generated
automatically through a customized program based on the
physical layout data and the dynamic production data of the
plant. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Related
literatures are reviewed in Section 2. Section 3 describes the
generic data driven methodology for production system modeling
and simulation. For the specific GA plant, Section 4 gives the

0166-3615/$ – see front matter ß 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compind.2011.05.004
766 J. Wang et al. / Computers in Industry 62 (2011) 765–775
process of the data driven modeling and simulation. Section 5
presents demonstration and scenario studies. Finally, Section 6
formulates the conclusions and future work of the paper.
2. Related research
2.1. Data driven modeling and simulation
With the increasing complexity of the modern manufacturing
systems, comprehensive simulation models are needed to reflect
complicated control logic of interrelations among various entities.
Therefore, modeling and simulation of a production process
becomes more challenging and requires more expert knowledge
and effort. In order to enable an industrial engineer with limited
simulation knowledge and experience to do simulation studies,
data driven method has been developed for complex manufactur-
ing system [7,8].
Data driven modeling and simulation is usually defined as a
method that allows a user to create and run simulation model
without the need to do any programming [9]. A data driven
simulator may be defined as a simulation model that can be
completely parameterized by providing data through a set of data
forms, tables, spreadsheets, or templates and is designed
specifically for modeling an identified set of systems [8]. The
main advantages of the data driven simulation are to enable the
users, rather than operation research specialists, to prepare and
run simulations, and achieve the ability to reconfigure the models
for assessing changed or alternative scenarios [7,10,11].
In the data driven modeling and simulation process, the
information that specifies the model must be represented in a
way, which will be used later directly by a model-building program to
generate the appropriate models. A machine shop information model
was presented to provide data interfaces for integrating machine
shop software applications with simulation [12]. The required
information, such as bills of materials (BOM), resource capacities,
process times and customer/supplier information can be obtained
from existing data sources, such as an enterprise requirements
planning (ERP) system and manufacturing execution system (MES)
[13]. The relational databases such as Structured Query Language
(SQL) [14], Extensible Markup Language (XML) schemas [15] were
also alternative representation information for this purpose.
The applications of data driven simulation by utilizing commer-
cial simulation packages were reported in literatures. Lee et al. [16]
addressed a conceptual framework to generate a WITNESS
simulation model automatically from graph-based process plans
and resource configurations for a job shop manufacturing system.
Son and Wysk [17] developed a structure and architecture for
automatic simulation model generation based on a shop floor
resource model and a shop floor control model by ARENA and
PROMDOEL. The method was limited to discrete part manufacturing
systems for a job shop with a single part unit loads. The Ford
assembly simulation tool [2] had a flexible interface to WITNESS that
allows models of engine assembly lines to be built automatically
from data contained within an EXCEL spreadsheet, without the user
having to do anything in WITNESS other than press the ‘‘run’’ button.
Data driven simulation is not a replacement for the general-
purpose simulation tools, but an adjunct that is valuable in certain
circumstances, where it is proposed to create many simulation
models, allowing a variety of scenarios to be explored relatively
quickly and without the level of simulation expertise that would
normally be required [18].
2.2. KANBAN and material handling system
Just-in-time has been described as a comprehensive production
and inventory control methodology and KANBAN system plays a
significant role. Kumar and Panneerselvam [19] provided a
detailed review on JIT-KANBAN system in industrial and produc-
tion system. In automotive industry, the efficiency of material
handling systems and the online inventory control by KANBAN
systems are two important factors of productivity. The assembly
line and its material handling system are closely related since they
affect each other’s performance. One of the primary goals of a well
designed material handling system is never to let the assembly line
feed locations starve for parts. In this paper the term material
handling system is used to represent the integration of the material
handling and the online inventory control systems for an assembly
line in the GA plant.
Predicting the performance of material handling systems is not
a trivial task. Randomness and the coupled interactions of the
system parameters require sophisticated analysis. Thus, discrete
event simulation is being widely used as a tool to identify and
modify factors of JIT-KANBAN and complex material handling
systems [20–22].
Agnetis et al. [23] deals with the material flow management in a
highly automated automobile assembly plant. The body sequenc-
ing and components routing/dispatching are considered to model
the AGV-based material delivery systems. Kozan [24] attempted to
develop a simulation model based on extensions of the vehicle
routing problem for examining the relative merits of alternative
material handling and inventory strategies for a truck assembly
plant. A generic KANBAN simulator that used an EXCEL spread-
sheet as the interface to manage the parameters of a WITNESS
simulation model was reported by Williams et al. [25], which had
been realized in the KanbanSIM software. However, the method to
model the conveyor-based assembly line is not mentioned and the
current model includes neither workstation downtime nor
transportation equipment downtime. Korkmaz et al. [26] devised
a PROMODEL simulation tool to analyze material flow dynamics of
a tractor assembly plant. An interface is provided that allows users
to input a variety of parameters and thus easily develop the
simulation model. Hao and Shen [27] proposed a discrete event
simulation and agent based hybrid approach to model complex
material handling processes in an assembly line. The assembly line
used pull strategy between every two adjacent stations and only
the serial assembly lines were considered. They assumed that there
is no Work-In-Process (WIP) buffer arrangement on the main
assembly line. Automatic modeling and simulation were not
mentioned in their work.
In an automobile assembly plant, assembly line and its material
handling system are inseparable. However, material handling is
always laid outside of the scope of production control [27].
Material handling has been the major barrier that results in
production breakdowns, low efficiency, and low performance of a
production system [23]. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge,
current literature does not provide any flexible simulation
methods to develop models that can be modified easily and
quickly to reflect the frequent adjustments of continuously
changing assembly lines with JIT material handling system. One
goal of this work is to contribute to this end.
3. A generic data driven methodology for production modeling
and simulation
This research has developed a data driven approach to
automatically generate simulation model based on manufacturing
process parameters and configurations, and also real-time update
the model based on dynamic production information during the
simulation running phase. Therefore, this approach can be utilized
as ‘‘rapid prototyping’’ tool for the plant floor simulation and
analysis. The prototype simulation models can be applied for
scenario studies, plant floor planning and operation control. The
 J. Wang et al. / Computers in Industry 62 (2011) 765–775
overall framework of the proposed data driven modeling and
simulation methodology for the production systems is demon-
strated in Fig. 1. The four main phases are described in detail as
follows:
(1) Data preparation
For a specific domain plant floor system, the modeling and
simulation objectives will be specified first so that the related
data, such as the plant floor layout data and the production
data, can be identified and classified. The information modeling
is used to describe the complex relationship among the data
objects of the plant floor system. The resulted information
model is useful to setup database for modeling and simulation.
Usually two methodologies can be used for information
modeling, generally based upon the final application platform
of either a relational or object-oriented database [28,29,30].
IDEF1X is a method for designing relational databases with a
syntax designed to support the semantic constructs necessary
in developing a conceptual information schema [29]. The
object-oriented approach is used for the object-oriented
database and the most typical features include the reuse of
objects, hierarchical composition of objects, and interaction of
objects [30]. Users can adopt any of the two methods for
information modeling.
In order to get the necessary data in the information model,
a ‘‘data-link’’ module should be setup to interface with the data
from the ERP/MES or other legacy systems. Many data
collection methods [31,32] can be used and are not the focus
in the paper. Based on the information model, correlated data
tables in the database are generated and the production data
are stored in the database tables with the formal formats,
Fig. 1. The framework of data driven production modeling and simulation.
767
which will be utilized later for the data driven modeling and
simulation.
(2) Model generation
During this phase, specific production logics for the plant
floor system will be modeled and checked to assure its
correctness. Next, the custom codes for generating the
simulation modules will be developed based on the production
logics through application program interface (API) of the
commercial simulation software. A generated template simu-
lation model not only contain the static layout data of the plant
floor, but also take the input from production dynamic
information and possible production changes during the model
running process. Therefore, the simulation can reflect the
production dynamic status and expected changes. This ensures
the simulation model to be flexible for scenario studies with
different production data.
(3) Model validation
Model verification and validation (V&V) is extremely
important in simulation practice [33]. It provides a base for
further analysis and scenario studies. Verification is the process
of determining that the computer program of the computerized
model and its implementation accurately represents concep-
tual description and specifications. Model validation affirms
that the simulation model is an accurate representation of the
system with the modeling objectives, within its domains of
applicability [34].
In the framework of data driven production modeling and
simulation, simulation analysis is conducted with different
sample production data from the plant floor in order to ensure
the correctness of the simulation models, where the production
data is automatic imported during the model running phase to
768 J. Wang et al. / Computers in Industry 62 (2011) 765–775
form the complete simulation models. The detailed V&V
methods in our research are described in Section 4.4.
(4) Scenario simulation
At the scenario study phase, the various production
configuration data is read from database automatically, and
the reports of the concerned plant floor performances will be
generated and analyzed. A decision whether further experi-
ments with new data should be carried out is made. Then the
final production configurations can be determined and applied
to the actual plant floor system.
Based on the above procedure, a data driven simulator can be
implemented using any commercial simulation software which
provide API language and database accessibility. In our study,
ARENA is selected as the target simulation system, which provides
convenient API and SIMAN language to integrate externally
developed function for data driven modeling and simulation.
The hierarchical modeling structure in ARENA is also flexible to
accommodate the complexity of the GA plant system from a top-
down view. The external custom codes are developed in Visual
Basic Application (VBA) for accessing relational MS ACCESS
Database by open database connectivity (ODBC)/SQL and embed-
ded in ARENA to control the modeling and simulation process.
4. The GA plant modeling and simulation based on the
methodology
4.1. Specification and assumptions
The data driven production modeling and simulation method-
ology is applied to a typical automotive GA manufacturing system.
Therefore, the model specification and assumptions are focused on
the specific automotive general assembly process.
In a mixed GA plant, the body is assembled with the numerous
parts on a long, moving assembly line that snakes through the
Fig. 2. The generic configuration of a GA plant.
plant and contains the numerous sections which are virtually
separated as stations for operations. The section can be categorized
as trim, chassis, door and final assembly. Besides the assembly line,
the material handling system is used to supply the parts to the
stations in a JIT pattern by E-KANBAN.
A typical general assembly plant is demonstrated in Fig. 2. It can
be observed that the configuration of the assembly line includes
the serial transfer line (e.g. section 6), the parallel line (e.g.,
sections 6 and 4), and the merging line (e.g., section 1, section 3).
Loop back configuration is not considered in this paper.
The plant floor operation, name conventions and assumptions
are detailed as follows:
(1) Production type
All automobile models are mixed and followed a pull system
operation. The input sequence of automobile is released based
on customer demands from ERP system.
(2) Assembly line configuration
The main and sub assembly line consists of sections and
buffers. A section is a physical segment of an assembly line.
There are some WIP buffers between two sections. Mean Time
Between Failure (MTBF) and Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) data
are collected for every section. Each section consists of a
physical conveyor and several stations. A station is a pre-
defined area where the operators perform their specific jobs
when the body is transferred by the continuously moving
conveyors. The number of stations in a section can be changed
according to the production requirement.
(3) Material handling process
The parts are sequentially assembled at different sections/
stations in the assembly line. Material handling process refers
to the transportation of the required parts to the right station
from the central inventory when requested. The centralized
parts inventory supplies the parts to the assembly line. The
capacity of the central inventory is assumed to be unlimited
 J. Wang et al. / Computers in Industry 62 (2011) 765–775
considering that our focus is on the production issue within the
GA plant. When receiving the E-KANBAN from the stations, the
drivers deliver the parts in their responsible sections/stations
zones. The downtime is not considered in transportation
process. Dispatching rules such as random order (SIRO), first
come first serve (FCFS), earliest due date (EDD), shortest
delivery time first (SDTF) can be applied to solve the scheduling
problem (or sequencing problem) of E-KANBAN for each driver.
4.2. Information modeling based IDEF1X
In our study, the concerned outputs of simulation include the
throughput, the utilization of operators in the assembly line and
the utilization of drivers for material handling. Two kinds of data
are classified including the physical configuration data and the
production data of the GA plant. The physical configuration data
are related to the static physical layout of the plant including
sections/conveyors, stations and buffers. The production data is the
dynamic information of production, such as the product BOM, the
mixed product sequence, assembly sequence of parts, and material
handling process including delivery time and route.
In this paper, structural IDEF1X information modeling method
is used for easily working with the relational database MS ACCESS
and defining the GA plant data within the context of their
interrelationships. Fig. 3 demonstrates the IDEF1X information
model of the GA plant. Each block represents physical entities (e.g.,
Station, Buffer and Operator) and process activities (e.g., Operation,
Reorder). Attributes of one entity are represented by related
attribute names in each block. The relations among entities are
represented by lines with a meaningful notation attached to each
line. The entities in dark color are related to the material handling
issues in the GA plant. All entities are generally categorized as the
physical layout object or the dynamic production objects.
(1) Static physical layout objects
Static physical layout objects are used to describe the
physical configuration of the plant which includes ‘‘assembly
Fig. 3. The IDEF1X model for the GA plant production simulation.
769
line’’ entity, ‘‘section’’ entity, ‘‘station’’ entity and ‘‘buffer’’
entity. All entities in physical layout object satisfy the
descriptions in Section 4.1. The ‘‘assembly line’’ entity includes
the main line and the subassembly line with individual takt
time. Therefore, ‘‘section’’ entity is either a normal section with
only a serial structure (e.g. section 5 in Fig. 2) or a merging
section where there is a subassembly line merging into the
main line (e.g. sections 1 and 3 in Fig. 2). Consequently, a
station can be a normal station (e.g. station 02 in section 1 in
Fig. 2) or a merging station (e.g. station 03 in section 1 in Fig. 2).
If a station is a merging station in a merging section, the
required quantity and the operation time from the subassem-
bly at this station should be specified. Similarly, ‘‘buffer’’ entity
can be treated as a normal buffer (e.g. buffers 1 and 2 in Fig. 2)
between two serial sections or a merging buffer (e.g. buffers 3
and 4 in Fig. 2) which connects a subassembly line to a merging
station of a merging section.
(2) Dynamic production objects
Dynamic production objects present the product and
process related configuration which include ‘‘part installed’’
entity, ‘‘part inputted’’ entity, ‘‘operation’’ entity, ‘‘reorder’’
entity and ‘‘delivery’’ entity. Each product has its own BOM
where parts are classified as installing parts or inputting parts
described with different entities. The installing parts are
assembled at a station and have the initial online inventory
level and average usage for the specific product models. While
the inputting parts, for example, body-shell and door-shell,
serve as the base of the installing parts. The ‘‘Operation’’ at a
station can be assembling parts and/or checking process. Each
operation has an operation time. The operation-based method
is used to assign the jobs of a station [35], where there can be
none, one or several operations according to the production
requirement. ‘‘Reorder’’ is a MHS related entity. A reorder is
triggered by ‘‘low’’ online inventory at a station for a specific
part. All reorders are sent to E-KANBAN for scheduling
deliveries. ‘‘Delivery’’ is also a MHS related entity. It describes
how parts are delivered for a reorder. In our system, the jobs for
770 J. Wang et al. / Computers in Industry 62 (2011) 765–775
parts delivery in the different zones are assigned to the drivers
in advance. The delivery route and time are used to schedule
the activities of drivers.
Based on the above information model of the GA plant, the data
tables for MS ACCESS database can be generated and are used to
store the necessary data for the data driven modeling and
simulation. In our study, the manual input and the automatic
spreadsheets reading methods are both used to collect data for the
database.
4.3. Integrated production logic modeling of the GA plant
The main GA plant production logic modules include the
assembly line modules and the material handling modules. In this
research, we integrate these two logics together to realize the data
driven modeling and simulation of the GA plant floor.
(1) Assembly line modules
Assembly line modules mainly consist of ‘‘station process’’
function, ‘‘section process’’ function, and ‘‘buffer process’’ function.
The structure and the relationship among the assembly line
modules are shown in Fig. 4 and are described as follows.
In the ‘‘station process’’ logic of the GA plant, three cases are
handled for the normal stations and the merging stations:
 An ‘‘assembly station process’’ (e.g. sta. i  1 in Fig. 4) consumes
parts and online inventory of these parts should be concerned
and replenished by the reorder logic described later.
 A ‘‘merging station process’’ (e.g. sta. i in Fig. 4) is described by
the required subassembly quantity and their installing time, but
the reorder logic is not necessary.
 A ‘‘non-assembly station process’’ (e.g., a checking station as sta.
i + 1 in Fig. 4) is modeled by process time only.
The ‘‘section process’’ logic of a normal section and a merging
section has some differences. In the logic of a ‘‘normal section
process’’ (e.g. section B and section C in Fig. 4), only the parts in the
online inventory are installed from station to station. But at the
merging section (e.g. section A in Fig. 4), there is a merging station
(e.g. sta. i in Fig. 4) where the subassembly from the sub-line will
be installed. So the station type in the merging section should be
judged before the execution of ‘‘station process’’. In the ‘‘merging
Fig. 4. The assembly line logic modules of the GA plant.
section process’’ of a mixed assembly line, the subassembly should
match with the product model either by exact match in a first-
come-first-out (FCFO) buffer, or by selecting the right subassembly
in the buffer. After being matched, the subassembly is installed to
the main-assembly by the ‘‘merging station process’’ (e.g. sta. i in
Fig. 4) and the occupied buffer capacities are just released.
Apparently, affected by section type behind a buffer, the ‘‘buffer
process’’ logic of a normal buffer (e.g. buffer N in Fig. 4) and a
merging buffer (e.g. buffer M in Fig. 4) is also different. Just as
described above, the release of the occupied capacity of the
merging buffer is completed in the logic of the next section. In the
‘‘normal buffer process’’, as soon as the main-assembly accesses
the conveyor of the next normal section, the occupied capacity is
released in this normal buffer.
(2) Material handling modules
The material handling modules include ‘‘reorder process’’
function, ‘‘E-KANBAN’’ function and ‘‘material delivery process’’
function. Fig. 5 describes the logic of the material handling
modules where the relationship between the assembly line and the
MHS is also shown.
The ‘‘reorder process’’ logic that is realized in ‘‘station process’’
will setup the threshold value for the reorder point and send the
reorder signal to E-KANBAN. ‘‘E-KANBAN’’ logic is to assign the
reordered parts to the different drivers according to the ‘‘Part-ID’’
attributes of this reorder. The assignment and scheduling of
delivery is based on a pre-defined algorithm. After receiving the
reorder, the drivers will deliver the required parts to the reorder
stations by ‘‘material delivery process’’.
It is the ‘‘reorder process’’ function that connects the assembly
line modules with the material handling modules. The individual
part usage can be tracked and the reorder points can be calculated
to trigger ‘‘E-KANBAN’’ process.
4.4. Model verification and validation
For the data driven modeling and simulation of the GA plant
floor system, the V&V for both the VBA source codes and the
Fig. 5. The material handling logic modules of the GA plant.
 J. Wang et al. / Computers in Industry 62 (2011) 765–775
generated simulation models should be performed. The following
efforts were made in our research:
(1) The object-oriented design and programming have been used
in a VBA development environment provided by ARENA.
Several object classes, such as assembly_line, materianl_han-
dling_system and GA_plant, have been clarified to accommo-
date the different data and process of the plant.
(2) After the programs were coded, the detailed code check were
made and debugged step by step. The trace technique
applicable in ARENA/SIMAN and VBA were used to find and
eliminate all the bugs following an iterative procedure. The
intermediate simulation outputs are traced and statistical
tested per module [34, p. 209].
(3) The model check function provided by ARENA is also performed
to insure the logic and structural correctness of modules. The
manual check of generated simulation model/modules one by
one in ARENA is also carried out to affirm that the simulation
model is just as the exact ones constructed through traditional
method by a simulation expert.
(4) Several different plant configurations have been applied to
generate and run the model by simplified data where the model
outputs can be predicted. The main parameters (e.g. WIP of a
section) are displayed visually beside the modules so that the
production states can be observed. Animation techniques were
also used to verify the entity path of the simulation models.
(5) The program/codes for the data driven modeling and simula-
tion are also validated by an industrial case study in Section 5,
where the simulation results are compared to another expert-
build model and real statistics from the plant floor.
5. Demonstration and scenario experimentation
A general assembly plant of an automobile company with the
generic configuration in Fig. 2 is used as a real case for the data
driven modeling and simulation methodology. The plant includes a
main assembly line and a door sub-line. The main line has seven
sections including four trim sections, two chassis sections and one
final section. There are six buffers in the main line. The door sub-
line has only one section, where a FCFO buffer follows and is
merged into one station of the final section in the main line. The
exact match is used for the door and the automobile model.
There is an E-KANBAN system transferring the parts requirement
from the stations to the drivers. In this plant, a total of thirty-five
types of automobiles are produced and there are three hundred and
twenty-four parts to be installed. A production configuration is that
all parts are distributed to one hundred and forty-nine stations with
a certain cycle time for each station/section, the takt_time of the
main line and the sub-line is decided according to markets demand
for products. There are sixteen drivers for parts delivery and the
responsible parts of each driver are allocated in advance.
5.1. Automatic generation of the GA plant model
Being provided the data of the GA plant in Table 1 stored in MS
ACCESS database as described in Section 4.2, the developed data
Table 1
Input/output of data driven modeling and simulation for the GA plant.
Inputs required
Number of section, station, buffer BOM per product model
Length and speed of section conveyor Assembly station and assembly time of each part
MTBF and MTTR of sections Initial online stock and its reorder rule of each part
Buffer capacity Part delivery group for drivers
Takt_time of each line Part delivery quantity per trip
Mixed production sequence Part load/delivery/unload time
771
driven simulator can easily and quickly generate a whole GA plant
simulation model with three level structures as shown in Fig. 6.
Not all the production logics are realized by flow modules in
ARENA, some logics are completed as VBA codes, such as ‘‘reorder
process’’.
(1) The top level view represents the four components of
simulation modules including inputted parts arrival, general
assembly line, material handling system and finished automo-
bile departure.
(2) The second level is the sub-models level showing decomposi-
tion of the top level modules. There are two arrival models for
body main line and door sub-line respectively. The section and
buffer models of the top level general assembly line include
eight sections and seven buffers (e.g. section 1 and buffer 1 in
the second level of Fig. 6). There are sixteen driver models
which deliver the reordered parts to the stations.
(3) The detailed flow modules are construed on the third level. In
this level, there are the sub-models for the sections (e.g. the
merging section 8 in Fig. 7) and the buffers (e.g. buffer 1 in
Fig. 6). The detailed driver model is also generated in this level
(e.g. driver 1 in Fig. 6).
5.2. Simulation analysis and model validation
By running the constructed simulation models with the
production data, the performance measures of the GA plant, such
as throughputs and labor utilizations, will be generated.
The simulation experiments can be used to further validate the
model and to assure that the model is a sufficiently accurate
representation in reference to its purpose. In order to validate our
method and the simulation model, one shift statistics and the
outputs of an affirmed expert built simulation model which has
been adopted at the GA plant are used. The two models are run
with the same production configurations. Twenty-two days are
simulated with eight hours each day. Fig. 8 presents one of the
experiments, which shows the comparison of the driver utilization
from the two models and actual one shift statistic data from the
plant. In Fig. 8, the utilization difference between the simulation
output and the statistical data of driver 1 to driver 15 is within
interval [0.4%,6.5%]. The average utilization difference is 3.5%.
While for the driver 16, the utilization difference is about 14.5%
because of the statistic randomness. It can be observed from Fig. 9
which shows the utilization of driver 9 and driver 16 for twenty-
two replications.
However, it is noticed that the utilization difference between
the expert-built model and the data driven model is very small. To
determine statistic significance, a paired-t confidence interval for
the driver utilizations with 95% confidence is tested between the
data-driven model and expert-build model:
H0 : md  me ¼ 0
H1 : md  me 6¼ 0
Outputs expected
Throughput
Operator/driver utilization
Buffer utilization
Part reorder and supplement records
772 J. Wang et al. / Computers in Industry 62 (2011) 765–775

Fig. 6. The overall structure of the generated simulation model for the GA plant.

where md is the driver utilizations from the data-driven model and
me is the driver utilization from the expert-built model. The
confidence interval (h) is computed as:
h ¼ t n1;1a=2 sðdÞ
where d is an estimate of the mean difference in the measured
performance (i.e. driver utilization) of the two models. In our case,
n = 22, a = 0.05.
Some utilization data of driver 16 from two models are shown
in Table 2 and other drivers’ are calculated in the same way. To
determine if twenty-two days is sufficient, the half-width of the
resulting 95% confidence interval for driver 16 is computed in
Table 2. For all drivers, the width of the interval in data driven
model is less than 6% of the average utilization. After calculation,
all confidence intervals of the driver utilization difference contain
the value zero. It is concluded that the difference of driver
(1) utilization of the two models (data-driven model and expert-build
model) are not statistically significant.
5.3. Different production scenario experiment
With the variation of market demands, the configuration of the
assembly line and its material handling system should be able to
change quickly corresponding to the market fluctuation while
maintaining the lower cost.

Fig. 7. The modules of the merging section 8 in the GA plant.

 J. Wang et al. / Computers in Industry 62 (2011) 765–775 773

Expert-build model
100%
Data-driven model
90% One shift statistics
80%
70%

Utilization
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Driver

Fig. 8. Driver utilizations of the two simulation models and the real plant floor.

90%

80%

70%

60%
Utilization

50%

40% Driver 9 data driven simulation

30% Driver 16 data driven simulation

Driver 9 one shift statistics
20%
Driver 16 one shift statistics
10%

0%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Day/Shift

Fig. 9. Utilization of the data driven models and the real plant floor for driver 9 and 16.

Table 2 The data driven modeling method in this paper enables this
Comparison of driver 16 utilization based on the paired-t difference. capability. For a given plant floor (e.g. the GA plant), the
simulation models which consist of the physical layout data
Replicationa Utilization of driver 16
can be generated within a few seconds based on the current
Data-driven Expert-built Difference popular computer hardware and software configuration.
model model
The industrial engineer can easily generate the different
2 0.6654 0.6380 0.0274 GA plant simulation models if the plants have the similar
4 0.7482 0.7389 0.0093
structures as shown in Fig. 2. Traditionally, the modeling effort
6 0.7709 0.7414 0.0295
8 0.7656 0.7886 0.0230 for the plant configuration or the changing production plan will
10 0.8087 0.8058 0.0029 take several months including model validation. With our
12 0.7834 0.7513 0.0321 method, it only takes a couple of weeks. Once the template
14 0.7779 0.7810 0.0031 model is coded, the model can be changed quickly and easily to
16 0.8029 0.7917 0.0112
18 0.7495 0.8048 0.0553
achieve ‘‘rapid prototyping’’ for the production modeling and
20 0.7706 0.7730 0.0024 simulation.
22 0.7452 0.7835 0.0383 Based on the simulation model with the static configuration,
Statistics what-if studies can be realized by using the real-time production
Average 0.7596 0.7548 0.0049
data (e.g. the mixed production sequence, the buffer capacity and
Std. Dev. 0.0459 0.0597 0.0267
95% CI [0.7393,0.7800] [0.7283,0.7812] [0.0070,0.0167] the line speed modifications) which is collected and stored in
CI width 0.0407 0.0529 database with required format. The virtual production prototype
Width/avg. 5.36% 7.01% and simulation analysis can be achieved without physical
a
Only even replication results are shown as samples. The statistics results are for implementation at the real plant floor and thus tremendously
all replications. save the time, cost and effort.
774 J. Wang et al. / Computers in Industry 62 (2011) 765–775
6. Conclusions and future work
The simulation-based production decision has been eventually
accepted by a lot of automobile manufacturers to quickly adjust
the assembly line for achieving the higher labor utilization and the
lower production cost while maintaining the required throughput
for market demands. A generic comprehensive framework for the
data driven production modeling and simulation methodology is
developed in the paper and applied to a typical automotive GA
plant to quickly and automatically generate simulation model for
production analysis.
An IDEF1X information model is developed to describe the
static and dynamic entities in the GA plant. The different assembly
line configurations, such as the serial line, the parallel line and the
merging line are modeled and integrated with a JIT pull mode
martial handling system including an E-KANBAN for parts delivery.
The assembly line modules and the material handling modules are
developed and connected by the reorders from the stations. The
methodology is realized in ARENA environment with SIMAN/VBA
custom control code. The research further refines the model and
the control logic by verification & validation processes. The
significance of the research includes:
(1) It provides a ‘‘rapid prototyping’’ methodology for the
production simulation and analysis. It enhances the production
decision process for a complex, dynamic system.
(2) It enables the re-modeling and updating capabilities based on
the dynamic changes and real-time data while maintaining the
same basic functionality. Thus the modeling and simulation
burden is dramatically reduced.
(3) It provides a data driven approach to integrate two dynamic
systems, the assembly production system and the material
handling system in one simulation model for comprehensive
analysis.
In the future, several issues need to be further explored. First,
the required production data should be collected automatically
and directly from the IT system of the company, and then stored in
database with suitable format. Manual data collection and entry
may be a time consuming and error-prone process [32]. It is
indispensable to build a data-link between the IT systems of the
plant floor and the data driven simulator. With these rapidly
accessible production data, a real time simulation can be
ultimately achieved for the short term simulation and the real
time control of the plant floor. Secondly, a lot of commercial
simulation packages are used widely in different manufacturers
[36]. The data driven approach requires the simulation software to
provide application program interface, which is multifarious in
program languages, for communication between the external
data and the internal events/entities. Thus, many template files/
modules should be developed for the different softwares. The
method in this paper can be extended and applied to the other
simulation packages. Thirdly, the data driven simulator is just a
what-if analysis tool which must have the production plan as the
input. As for the GA plant, the assembly line balancing and the
material handling issues (e.g. the driver quantity, the working
zone of drivers) should be optimized concurrently for the whole
plant, which will serve as the input data of the developed
simulator.
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 J. Wang et al. / Computers in Industry 62 (2011) 765–775
Junfeng Wang is currently an associate professor in
the Department of Industrial & Manufacturing System
Engineering, School of Mechanical Science & Engi-
neering, Huazhong University of Science & Technolo-
gy, China. He received BS from Beijing Jiaotong
University, Beijing, China in 1991, and PhD degree
in Mechanical Engineering from Huazhong University
of Science & Technology in 2004. He had been a
visiting scholar at S.M. Wu Manufacturing Research
Center (WuMRC), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
USA, from 2009 to 2010. He was a IIE member from
2010 to 2011. His research interests include system
modeling and simulation, production planning and
control, virtual/augmented reality application in
manufacturing, and environmentally conscious
manufacturing.
Qing Chang received BS from Beijing Polytechnic
University, Beijing, China, and MS from University of
Wisconsin, Madison, and PhD in Manufacturing Pro-
gram, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1991, 1996
and 2006, respectively.
She was a senior researcher in General Motors Research
and Development Center (1997–2009). She joined New
York Institute of Technology (NYIT) as an Assistant
Professor in Department of Mechanical Engineering in
2009.
Prof. Chang has published over 20 refereed journal articles and conference
papers. She has three US patents in the area of production system and control.
She received three General Motors Boss Kettering Innovations Awards (2005,
2006 and 2008), three Charles L. McCuen Special Achievement Awards (2005,
2006 and 2008). Her primary research interests are in real-time decision making
of dynamic systems, design, analysis and control of production systems. She has
served as session organizer and chair of IIE Annual conference and ASME
International Conference on Manufacturing Science and Engineering. She is a
member of ASME and IIE.
View publication stats
775
Guoxian Xiao received the BS degree in mechanical
engineering and the MS degree in manufacturing
engineering from Northeastern University, Shenyang,
China, in 1982 and 1984, respectively, and the PhD
degree in mechanical engineering from the University
of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1995. He is a staff
researcher at General Motors (GM) Research and
Development Center. With GM since 1997, he leads
several projects on the research and development of
advanced technologies in machining process, real-time
plant floor system, and remanufacturing system. He has
six US patents. He has authored more than 30 technical
papers for journals and conferences.
Dr. Xiao received four GM’s Boss Kettering Innovation Awards (2000, 2005, 2006,
2008), four Charles L. McCuen Special Achievement Awards (1998, 2005, 2006,
2008), the John Campbell Award (2006), the ASME Blackall Machine Tool and Gage
Tool Award (2003), in machining process, production and maintenance system
researches.
Nan Wang is currently working towards her PhD in the
Department of Industrial & Manufacturing System
Engineering, School of Mechanical Science & Engineer-
ing, Huazhong University of Science & Technology,
China. She received BS from Beijing Institute of Graphic
Communication, Beijing, China in 2003, and MS degree
in Mechanical Engineering from Huazhong University
of Science & Technology in 2006. Her research interests
include system modeling and simulation, optimization
and control of production systems.
Shiqi Li is a professor in School of Mechanical Science
and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and
Technology, China. He received his PhD degree from
Huazhong University of Science and Technology in
1992. His research interests include advanced
manufacturing technology, system simulation, aug-
mented reality, tele-operation.