Neutral information structure for manufacturing simulations: information structure to support discrete event simulation in manufacturing systems

Discrete Event Simulation (DES) is ranked among the top three tools for management support. However, it lags in becoming the successful tool in the industry that many experts have predicted. In this paper, sixteen projects accomplished in the area of DES have been analyzed in order to find the reasons for this delay. Most important is the lack of reliable manufacturing data in companies. This is due to inadequate practices within the organization, thus forcing users to build simulation models with estimated data. The paper also answers other questions as to why DES is an underutilized decision tool. DES is an information-intensive tool for decision-making, but has weak support concerning working procedures within organizations. Continuous generation of manufacturing data at all levels has to be supported by the working procedure in order to increase the use of DES as an everyday tool. How to improve this situation also is discussed.