A Fuzzy Discrete Event Simulator for Fuzzy Production Environment Analysis

Abstract Discrete Event Simulation is a powerful tool to help production managers in planning manufacturing systems. The necessity to rapid react to market conditions is pushing production planners to process requirements and information affected by vagueness. Vagueness is related with event definition, therefore it is not manageable through statistical tools, but more properly by using fuzzy mathematics. Production situations where uncertainty takes body in term of vagueness are referred as Fuzzy Production Environments. Classical Discrete Event simulators are not suitable to deal with fuzzy variables, therefore they cannot be used to model Fuzzy Production Environments. This paper aims to fill this gap in the production research exploring a very untouched area within this framework, that is the development of a proper tool for Fuzzy Discrete Event Simulation.