SIMTER: A Joint Simulation Tool for Production Development

Digital engineering tools and procedures have had a positive impact on the European manufacturing industry. However, to design a sustainable manufacturing system, a multitude of system dimensions has to be jointly optimized. Manual work and automation are the complementary elements in the modern production systems. The increasing customization and shortening product lifecycle have led to smaller batch sizes and more varying products. The intelligence and adaptability of human workers make them the most flexible part of the production process. However, production must be optimized with respect to human wellbeing and environmental sustainability. In the Finnish-Swedish project SIMTER, we developed an integrated simulation tool helping to maximize production efficiency and to balance manual and automated work subject to ergonomics constraints. We examined human factors and environmental impacts as a part of production process optimization. The study based on an extensive literature review and collaboration with the companies, which included interviews, observations and tests with the SIMTER tool. The project's core result is the SIMTER simulation tool, which enables production simulation jointly taking into account levels of automation, ergonomics, and environmental impacts. The SIMTER tool enables dynamic simulations, instead of static simulations. During the project, we improved a digital human model, which relies on a database of measured and recorded real human motions. In addition, an environmental database was integrated with the simulation tool, so that environmental impact can be assessed while optimizing production. The assessment and choice of different levels of automation create the basis for the production optimization and simulation procedure.