OT: Industrial Process modeling

[Kurt Hansen]

Bill Gradwohl wrote:

> I'm looking for an application, hopefully under Linux, to model an 
> industrial process. If I knew what something like this was called, I 
> could Google for it, but I know of no name for it.
>
> Extremely trivial example:
> Drill Press time 5 minutes - consumes D kwh of electricity. Leads to:
> CNC machine time 60 minutes - consumes C kwh of electricity. Leads to:
> Anealing oven time 30 minutes - Consumes A kwh of eletricity.
>
> I'd like to feed the app resources, characteristics of those 
> resources, and then plug in production figures over a time period and 
> have it tell me how many Drill Presses, etc I need to get that 
> production, how much energy is consumed to add to cost of goods, etc.
>
> Largely this is a complex scheduling problem. The app should also 
> highlight resource shortages to say that certain things are impossible 
> due to not enough whatever, and lay out a time line for when things 
> need to happen.
>
> Any one know what this might be called, and where I might find such an 
> app?

I think you've got it -- process modeling. Here's what I found on Google:

http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Manufacturing/Process/

I used some about a decade ago, both on Macs and PCs. I doubt you'll 
find something on Linux for free because it is not easy software to use 
effectively. Though, I remember the Mac software being fun.

I've looked for Design of Experiments software -- sort of related -- and 
not found much on Linux.

Take care,

Kurt Hansen
khansen at charityweb.net