Manufacturing system design tool - MAST - an introduction

By 1990, fifty percent of all NC/DNC machine tools will be included in computerized manufacturing systems. Operation research techniques will be used extensively in the design and control of these systems. But because of the complexity of these systems, theory will only solve parts of the total system problem. Therefore, computer simulation will serve as the cornerstone on which theoretical models can be combined to study the total system. The MAST model is a computer simulation which has the capability to simulate a wide variety of systems configurations. The user of MAST provides a data file containing the description of the system with free formated data cards and selects a set of control decision rules from existing libraries. Because of this design for system description and decision rule selection, the MAST model provides a means to study alternate control policies of existing systems or design of proposed systems with the need of the user writing computer code.