Automated post-simulation visualization of modular building production assembly line

Simulation is often used to model production processes with the aim of understanding and improving them. In many cases, however, information produced by simulation is not detailed enough and can be misinterpreted. The use of visualization in combination with simulation can provide project participants with a detailed-level model to prevent misinterpretation of information and to understand the production process. The purpose of this research is to automate the visualization process as a post-simulation tool through sharing interactive information between simulation and visualization. The proposed methodology has been applied to the production line of modular buildings with the output of lean, simulation, and visualization in the form of animation. Based on the new scheduling developed by applying lean principles, a simulation model was built and its output was extracted to an ASCII file to be used as input for visualization. 3D visualization was developed using Maxscript in 3D Studio Max for automation of the visualization process. The proposed methodology has been applied to a case study to illustrate the essential features of the work and its benefits for decision making.