Mixing ABS and DES Approach to Modeling of a Delivery Process in the Automotive Industry

Abstract

Today in the automotive industry, reconfigurability, flexibility and high availability are as important as the level of automation, cost effectiveness, and maximum throughput. In this paper two main delivery strategies (JIT - Just in Time, JIS - Just in Sequence) in the automotive industry are presented and two approaches to modeling and to simulate that strategies are described (DES - Discrete-Event and ABS - Agent-Based Simulation). Authors discuss that DES approach to JIS strategy is insufficient and propose to mixing DES and ABS in simulation of delivery processes in the automotive. The case study of proposed solutonion is described. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.