The flexibility of an automated manufacturing system (AMS) is largely determined by the architecture of its supervisory software. The AMS supervisory software should be compatible enough to allow re‐configuration, maintenance, and upgrading to be done at a reasonable cost, so as to prolong the...

One of the most challenging problems facing industrial engineers concerns the design and operational planning of today′s sophisticated production systems. The need for a detailed quantitative analysis is far more apparent than ever before. The application of discrete‐event simulation has...

The operational analysis of catering operations is constrained by the lack of an internationally accepted taxonomy and the seemingly infinite variety of operations. The development of catering operations is described and a flow chart of ten distinct stages that constitute any such operation is...

Sound design, planning and monitoring is critical to the operational and financial success of today′s sophisticated manufacturing and non‐manufacturing systems. Owing to their increasing complexity, discrete‐event simulation is becoming the most acceptable tool to aid planning the design...

The IDEF techniques have been developed in projects sponsored by the US Air Force in order to describe, specify and model manufacturing systems in a structured graphical form. These techniques can be classified in two categories: the “modelling” and the “descriptive” varieties. Compares...

The paper shows that it is possible to reconstruct the dynamical attractors of demand at different levels of the supply chain by using time series duplication and techniques for normalisation. The objective of reconstructing dynamical attractors is to learn more about the long‐term dynamical...

As the increase in manufacturing competitiveness forces organizations to use more sophisticated and complex software, system performance depends on clever systems design, efficient planning and scheduling of the related processes. For these advanced manufacturing systems the dependence on human...

A simulation procedure is presented to estimate the throughput availability of a serially interconnected manufacturing system. The model presented in the article is able to analyse, predict and suggest ways for improving productivity. The model is applicable to systems with branching and...

This paper faces the problem of the decision maker who has to identify the most appropriate organisational mode for the external acquisition of a certain technology. Its objective is twofold: to explain the rationale behind the choice of a definite mode of collaboration, i.e. to understand which...

Presents work that addresses the issue of decision support for the operational management of subcontract manufacture. Theoretical study has been combined with empirical research and practical industrial investigation with regard to distributed manufacturing systems which incorporate subcontract...