Application of simulation and zero-one programming for analysis of numerically controlled machining operations in the aerospace industry

The described simulation study has the objective to evaluate various design alternatives for an aluminum sheet metal fabrication system. In this application a zero-one algorithm is called by the simulation process each time a decision is needed for release of orders to the manufacturing cell. The analysis considered is concerned with a numerically controlled sheet metal router and its supporting systems. Two types of improvements to the numerically controlled router were simulated. Upgrading the router to handle variable stack sizes produced cost savings of over 10 percent. Attention is given to the simulation technique, the system characteristics, a multiple sheet analysis, the zero-one formulation, aspects of zero-one formulation implementation, and an optimized order selection analysis.