Simulation Support For Automated Material Handling System Design 

I am an independent simulation consultant with more than 30 years of experience modeling manufacturing systems and material handling automation.   

I primarily work with companies that design and integrate automated material handling systems, helping engineering teams understand how a proposed system is likely to perform before it is built.  

With experience inside automation companies, manufacturing operations, and software organizations, I bring practical insight into equipment behavior, system interactions, and material handling controls — not just simulation tools.

Simulation, when done carefully, provides clarity around:

• Throughput expectations

• Bottlenecks and constraints

• Effects of variability

• Control logic impacts

• Peak and stress conditions
  
  

Why Simulation Matters

Most material handling systems are designed using:

• Equipment rated speeds

• Static calculations

• Layout drawings

• Experience and rules of thumb
  
  

These methods are important, but alone, cannot predict how a system behaves when all components interact dynamically.  Material handling systems are not static. They are constantly changing based on product flow, routing decisions, merges, accumulation, and control logic.  This dynamic behavior is where most performance problems originate.

Bottlenecks rarely come from a single slow piece of equipment.

They come from:

• How equipment interacts

• How flow is merged and divided

• How WMS and subsystem control logic routes and manages product flow
  
  

These issues are invisible in layouts and spreadsheets.  Simulation exposes them.