ACD Modeling of Homogeneous Job Shops Having Inline Cells

In an electronics fabrication line, processing devices are arranged as a network of inline cells. Recently, the use of simulation has evolved into online simulation, which is used in simulation-based operational management, from the traditional offline analysis of facility layout and dispatching rules. An online simulation starts with the current state of the manufacturing facilities at any point of time. This paper presents a systematic procedure for building activity cycle diagram (ACD) models of homogeneous job shops having inline cells. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, an ACD model was developed for a simple homogeneous job shop having bi-inline cells and a dedicated simulator was also developed.