Integration Of Information Technology And Simulation For Managing Manufacturing-Logistics Network

Abstract

This paper helps investigate the integration of information technology (IT) and simulation in order to help understand how to set reliable delivery dates in manufacturing-logistics networks. This integration is necessary to assist organizations involved in the network to help plan and control their operations more efficiently. The authors reviewed previous work in the areas of IT-oriented logistics, real time simulation, and due date assignment. We describe a general architecture for a real-time simulation-based system and create a prototype based on our architecture. An application of the prototype in a small manufacturing company is employed. The prototype implemented was for a local manufacturer of made-to-order safety windows with three manufacturing plants and a one office location, all within a 50-mile radius. The prototype for this company was developed utilizing a Boreland’s Delphi 3 application development tool. The reason that a distributed simulation model was not implemented was that we focused on validating the most critical components of our architecture using a simple prototype as our initial validation effort. The following possible advantages of our architecture were identified:

* The architecture can use the most up-to-date operational data to make decisions regarding delivery date assignment and network management.

* The architecture can support both central and distributed environments.

* The prototype developed based on the architecture could assign tight delivery dates.

* The prototype could be used to maintain or increase the level of on-time deliveries by monitoring the operations.

* The prototype could generate options on delivery dates and cost based on routings/priority and transportation service options.