A supply chain paradigm to model business pprocesses at the Y-12 national security complex

Abstract

The NNSA's Y-12 National Security Complex is a manufacturing facility operated by BWXT Y-12. Y-12's missions include ensuring the US' nuclear weapons deterrent, storing nuclear materials, and fueling US naval reactors. In order to understand the impacts of these diverse missions on its numerous functional divisions, Y-12 has relied on simulation modeling. Traditional discrete- event simulation modeling has proven to be an indispensable tool for Y-12; however, this paper will discuss Y-12's use of a supply chain paradigm to model its entire business processes. The supply chain model executes very quickly and is versatile enough to model all of the nuances of Y-12's complex business. It can model equipment, labor, facility, or other constraints and provides a rough-cut estimate of schedule compliance over many years (even decades). This paper describes how the model is implemented and presents simple results from a representative process.