ANIMATION - A NEW DIMENSION IN COMPUTER-SIMULATION OF AUTOMOTIVE ASSEMBLY PROCESSES

American automotive companies are moving toward increased use of JIT (i.e., Just-In-Time), SPD (i.e., Sequenced Parts Delivery), and ILVS (i.e., In-line Vehicle Sequencing) in order to produce quality vehicles at reduced cost. Maintaining vehicles in the proper sequence leads to calculations which are functions of plant conditions (e.g., job rate, out-of--sequence conditions, etc.). The recent advances of color animation tools to supplement the analytical simulation languages have made the understanding of these operations easier to grasp. This paper addresses the use of animation for presentation of ILVS alternatives. The paper is separated into four sections. The first section presents ILVS concepts. This is followed by a discussion of how vehicles get out of sequence and of re-sequencing procedures. Then methods for sizing resequencers are described. The final section focuses on the use of animation for presenting ILVS.