Simulation based Performance Analysis of Production Intralogistics

Production planning and scheduling rely heavily on the efficient operations of production logistics and material handling equipment. Industry 4.0 technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), Digital Twins, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be applied to production logistics in terms of autonomous mobile robots that facilitate to increase the flexibility and productivity of the whole production site. However, before the implementation of an automated production logistics systems, its feasibility must be analysed. This paper describes a simulation-based approach, including the definition of and comparative analysis of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), to analyse the performance of production intralogistics applied to a selected use case. The presented approach offers a proof of concept on the basis of which decision-makers can implement mobile robots for intralogistics in their own production environments. (paper)