ABSTRACT
An assembly line is composed of many individual components, such as operator, workstation, work-in-process, material handling system, information system, production scheduler, job dispatcher, work-in-process management policy, parts feeding scheme, human resource management policy, rework handling method, and so on. Line performance is the outcome of interactions between components. For the trace-driven method, relatively detailed input files must be prepared, and gradually fed into a computer program which simulates the studied system numerically and gathers data for predetermined performance measures. It is possible to construct a computer program that can run both methods. If input data is available from observing an existing line, the trace-driven method can be used for program verification. The Monte Carlo method, at its original appearance, is a numerical approach for the solution of equations. In computer simulation, random numbers are defined in a broad sense. A random number may be generated from a gamma distribution, a normal distribution, a Poisson distribution, etcetera.
