Framework for Simulation-based Performance Assessment and Resilience Improvement

This paper presents a framework to assess and improve the resilience of a production system by identifying the ideal trade-off between disruption mitigation and associated cost. Through its modular structure, the developed framework is able to generate a simulation for an arbitrary production line, with all disruption relevant properties. Based on repeated, parallel runs of the simulation generated, the overall economically efficient level of disruption mitigation can be identified. In this first stage of the research this concerns the locations for buffers and their respective sizes. The ability to identify such optimal level of resilience may allow companies to alleviate the impact that disruptions have on their operations while taking into account the economic effectiveness of the measures taken.