5.5 Software Evaluation and Selection
121
academic use to be able to clearly evaluate the applicability of the developed
methodology.
5.5
Software Evaluation and Selection
The modeling and simulation method as well as the optimization algorithm for
the improvement of systems is highly dependent on the dynamics of the system
examined, the analysis objectives, as well as on the software environment used.
This chapter introduces selected simulation systems that are suitable for combined
simulation in order to select an appropriate tool for implementing the developed methodology. In principle, it has to be differentiated between simulation
systems that enable hybrid simulation in one single software solution, so-called
multi-method modeling simulation tools, and simulation systems that implement
a hybrid simulation through the coupling of multiple simulation tools. The aim
of this work is to implement discrete and continuous simulation in combination
with optimization experiments in one software tool without the requirement for
challenging interface management and complex data exchange or synchronization
demands between different software applications. For this reason, only simulators
that are capable of multi-method modeling are considered below.
The software most frequently used in production simulation, especially in the
automotive industry, is Tecnomatix Plant Simulation. Starting in version 11, Plant
Simulation supports a simplified representation of energy consumption in the production by using object attributes for active material flow elements [Ba2015,
p. 599]. Thus, the energy consumption for some machine states can be specified as constant values. However, minimum retention times in certain machine
states, restrictions on machine state changes, as well as the dynamic machine
behavior cannot be modeled by the use of static objective attributes. Plant Simulation is a purely discrete simulation tool, which is not capable of multi-paradigm
simulation. As the realistic depiction of the energy consumption behavior of
production machines “demands certain flexibility and freedom which cannot be
provided by mature, large scale simulation tools like Plant Simulation” [Th2012,
p. 97] this tool will not be considered in the context of the development of the
simulation-based optimization methodology in this book.
121
academic use to be able to clearly evaluate the applicability of the developed
methodology.
5.5
Software Evaluation and Selection
The modeling and simulation method as well as the optimization algorithm for
the improvement of systems is highly dependent on the dynamics of the system
examined, the analysis objectives, as well as on the software environment used.
This chapter introduces selected simulation systems that are suitable for combined
simulation in order to select an appropriate tool for implementing the developed methodology. In principle, it has to be differentiated between simulation
systems that enable hybrid simulation in one single software solution, so-called
multi-method modeling simulation tools, and simulation systems that implement
a hybrid simulation through the coupling of multiple simulation tools. The aim
of this work is to implement discrete and continuous simulation in combination
with optimization experiments in one software tool without the requirement for
challenging interface management and complex data exchange or synchronization
demands between different software applications. For this reason, only simulators
that are capable of multi-method modeling are considered below.
The software most frequently used in production simulation, especially in the
automotive industry, is Tecnomatix Plant Simulation. Starting in version 11, Plant
Simulation supports a simplified representation of energy consumption in the production by using object attributes for active material flow elements [Ba2015,
p. 599]. Thus, the energy consumption for some machine states can be specified as constant values. However, minimum retention times in certain machine
states, restrictions on machine state changes, as well as the dynamic machine
behavior cannot be modeled by the use of static objective attributes. Plant Simulation is a purely discrete simulation tool, which is not capable of multi-paradigm
simulation. As the realistic depiction of the energy consumption behavior of
production machines “demands certain flexibility and freedom which cannot be
provided by mature, large scale simulation tools like Plant Simulation” [Th2012,
p. 97] this tool will not be considered in the context of the development of the
simulation-based optimization methodology in this book.