Toward a generic simulator for industrialized housing manufacturing

New emerging manufacturing technologies are becoming more evident each day for the American housing manufacturing industry. In this type of industry, where a large number of small companies exist, managers may see potential improvements or new manufacturing technology implementations as a high risk decision making process. Simulation, as proved in other industries, can offer managers the ability to design and test different manufacturing scenarios before making changes. This paper reviews previous research in the area of generic manufacturing simulators, or simulation models, tailored to a specific industry. This will serve as the basis for developing a Generic Industrialized Housing Manufacturing Simulator. The purpose of this generic simulator is to provide easy and fast model development with specific features tailored to the housing manufacturing industry. The simulator is also intended to provide a user-friendly interface and to allow a high degree of model flexibility and reconfigurability. Some of the characteristics of prototype models will be described, and future opportunities are investigated such as object-oriented simulation and expert systems application