Simulation in heavy industry

The need to understand the potential impact of change and investment strategies when spending millions of pounds on equipment forced the heavy industry to look at simulation techniques as an aid to the decision making process. These early developments of simulation tools lie, at least in part with the steel industry, where in the 1980's the British Steel Corporation developed and released the Forssight1 simulation software. These original simulation products were little more than libraries of complex code and model development time would often have extended to 6 or 9 months before results were made available.

Today simulation software is infinitely more powerful and development time is often in term of days, or even hours rather than months. However the problems facing heavy industry today, from global market competition to stock markets looking for improved investment returns, provide even greater motivation to find appropriate solutions than they did 30 years ago. This is particularly relevant when looking at the development of a new processing plant or decisions to refurbish particular equipment where the costs can run into tens if not hundreds of millions of pounds. The use of simulation modelling can help dramatically reduce the overall project costs, prove the implementation, commissioning and running strategies and act as a catalyst for business process improvement.

Currently we find simulation software implemented across a wide range of heavy industries from power generation, aircraft manufacture, shipbuilding, construction and steel through to primary processing activities such as mining. The application areas are just as diverse, yet often, but certainly not exclusively, characterised by the size of the items being produced and the material management issues, rather than the physical complexity of the end product, contrary to sectors such as the automotive industry. When exploring these applications in more detail, it is often found that the complexity of the control systems and the material movement logistics are often major areas of interest where efficiencies may be gained. Other characteristics of these processes often manifest themselves in terms of the physical size of the finished product.

The problems are very different when you are constructing a ship, casting steel slabs or building a generator set (genset) for the power industry when compared to say manufacturing a washing machine or TV tube. Firstly the item is often so large that it is built in situ or requires huge material handling systems in order to transport it. Commonly the requirements are such that the equipment may need to be transported around the site rather than moving the item being built. Secondly the process is often a one off or built in limited volumes, thus the physical infrastructure of the site is often required to be more flexible than in high volume industries. These unique aspects of heavy industry are where we begin to start to appreciate the need to understand and manage the whole material handling and logistics systems.

To be able to understand how material is moved around the site and the limitations imposed are key factors when attempting to improve the facility design. Other areas of interest include reviewing the issues caused by the inability to directly deliver items from source to destination in a single stage or using a single piece of processing equipment. Not to mention the more conventional issues of manning levels, shift planning and identification of system bottlenecks.

Appropriate simulation software is allowing organisations to explore a huge range of “what if” scenarios, help improve the project planning and commissioning phases as well as providing a superb communications medium when trying to convey any phase of the project.

Example projects in these industries have been well documented and include;

The green field development of facilities to deal with various stages of aircraft wing manufacture. Simulation models provided the complete proving ground for the system design and helped to design the automated control system.

The design of facilities in the steel industry, both for new plant design where simulation provides the proof that the facility will deliver the required volumes and grades of steel slab for proposed new continuous casting facilities, through to examining the capacity and material handling issues in slab yards and rolling mills.

The ship building industry has employed simulation to investigate the logistics issues associated with construction and commissioning. Simulation software has been used to justify the use of particular material handling equipment and provide a mechanism to examine options for work scheduling.

The pipeline construction industry where simulation provides a schedule proving role in helping understand the supply chain issues associated with the entire construction process.

In many cases such projects help deliver huge savings, improve efficiency and dramatically increase confidence in the outcome of the project. The technology has been adopted both as a continuous improvement tool used by the organisations themselves as well as by the engineering companies who provide specialist design and build services. Companies using this technology include, Alcan, Corus, Strachan & Henshaw, BP, Lockheed Martin and Airbus Industries. Typical simulation software products used in this sector are Flexsim, Simul8, Quest, Witness, and Automod.

This paper was written by Saker Solutions Limited, an independent supplier of simulation services. Using experience gained in over 30 years of working in industry, Saker staff have been involved in applying simulation to a wide range of application areas. Saker has the ability to help clients achieve real business benefits from the use of this exciting technology.

Saker operates in partnership with a variety of organisations to ensure that clients get the right solutions for their requirements. With a depth of experience in providing simulation services to a large variety of major companies, Saker can offer consulting and training services as well as working with clients to help identify the right simulation software to use. In addition Saker Solutions can offer support for a variety of simulation products including Witness, Simul8 and Flexsim. For more information contact Saker Solutions at info@sakersolutions.com or call 01527 892296

1The Forssight simulation product has not been used commercially for some years, however the software developers responsible for the system ultimately assisted in the building of the BL systems See Why simulation product. This in turn led directly to the development of the Witness simulation software, which is now recognised as one of the worlds leading simulation products.