An IoT-enabled simulation approach for process planning and analysis: a case from engine re-manufacturing industry

Engine re-manufacturing factory runs comparatively smaller but more changeable business than normal engine manufacturing factory. Therefore, it needs a simple, quick, effective, but less costly approach for process planning. This paper proposes a novel rapid simulation approach, named as Efficiency Validate Analysis, which can serve as process planning and process analysis tools. This approach is developed based on the flexible simulation framework and discrete event system specification formalism (DEVS). Internet-of-Things (IoT) data, in terms of the historical records of sensors and radio frequency identifications (RFIDs), is adopted to build the foundation of simulation. This new simulation approach is evaluated with a case in an engine re-manufacturing plant in China. By comparing with traditional methods, the results show that the new approach supports process planning tasks more effectively. This approach offers a simple but practical way to combine the virtual information world with the entity physical world and drive their bidirectional mapping in re-manufacturing process planning, analysis and optimisation.