Simulation for manufacturing system design and operation: Literature review and analysis

• We provide a comprehensive review of articles involving simulation in manufacturing.
• Comparison of results from 2002 to 2013 with previous review results.
• The results show a general shift in the application of discrete event simulation from manufacturing system design to operation.

This paper provides a comprehensive review of discrete event simulation publications published between 2002 and 2013 with a particular focus on applications in manufacturing. The literature is classified into three general classes of manufacturing system design, manufacturing system operation, and simulation language/package development. The paper further categorizes the literature into 11 subclasses based on the application area. The current review contributes to the literature in three significant ways: (1) it provides a wide coverage by reviewing 290 papers; (2) it provides a detailed analysis of different aspects of the literature to identify research trends through innovative data mining approaches as well as insights derived from the review process; and (3) it updates and extends the existing classification schemes through identification and inclusion of recently emerged application areas and exclusion of obsolete categories. The results of the literature analysis are then used to make suggestions for future research.