Citation:
John Oyekan, Windo Hutabarat, Christopher Turner, Ashutosh Tiwari, Neha Prajapat, Nadir Ince, Xiao-Peng Gan, Tony Waller. A 3D Immersive Discrete Event Simulator for Enabling Prototyping of Factory Layouts. Procedia CIRP, Volume 38, 2015, Pages 63-67. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Through-life Engineering Services.
Abstract:
There is an increasing need to eliminate wasted time and money during factory layout design and subsequent construction. It is presently difficult for engineers to foresee if a certain layout is optimal for work and material flows. By exploiting modelling, simulation and visualisation techniques, this paper presents a tool concept called immersive WITNESS that combines the modelling strengths of Discrete Event Simulation (DES) with the 3D visualisation strengths of recent 3D low cost gaming technology to enable decision makers make informed design choices for future factories layouts. The tool enables engineers to receive immediate feedback on their design choices. Our results show that this tool has the potential to reduce rework as well as the associated costs of making physical prototypes.