Design and simulation based assessment of lean material flows considering imprecision

In this paper an approach is presented which facilitates transparency and reliability of obtained results for the selection, simulation and ranking process for material flow design alternatives. In the design phase of material flow planning projects, in the context of lean production, key performance indicators for design alternatives, considering machine tools and intralogistics elements, are derived using simulation. The state of the art of value stream design and simulation does not consider inconsistent and volatile input data, which could lead to imprecise conclusions and so to wrong design decisions. To overcome this issue and to consider imprecision in the simulation phase and the subsequent decision making process, a decision making approach with the fuzzy set theory based on a sensitivity analysis is proposed in this paper. The method discussed is to help practitioners to get more reliable results in the material flow design phase and to achieve more competitive value streams. Using the design example of machine tool-intralogistics systems obtained results are discussed.