In an increasingly competitive world, the responsiveness has become essential to improve the performance of companies. Accordingly a large number of companies have implemented the Lean approach. This approach is a production management method based on waste elimination and just-in-time production. This leads manufacturers to update and adapt their ways of production management and so reorganize the production lines to reduce costs, minimize delays as well as optimize their flexibility. To do this, the use of the Virtual Reality (VR) in the lines production's simulation would offer many advantages. Thus, this technology would allow users to interact with simulation model in real-time and in a 3D format. However, few works have integrated virtual reality in the field of simulation in Lean manufacturing environment. The objective of this paper is to propose a method of simulation of production flows in a virtual environment in real time. To this end, we will review the traditional industrial tools in the field of production simulation. Then we will present the main advantages of using the VR to the manufacturing processes in a lean environment. Finally a global software solution which integrates VR will be proposed and an example of its application to simulate lines production in VR will be presented.

In a world in continuous evolution, the different industrial actors need to be reactive to remain competitive and to conquer new market trends. To achieve this, they are constrained to improve their way of industrial management, both at the strategic level, to adapt to technological advances and follow market trends. In this chapter, we introduce a new simulation method that makes it easy to understand the results of a given simulation. This is of crucial importance because the design stage of a manufacturing system usually implies not specialist actors. The objective of the chapter is to present the main advantages of using the virtual reality (VR) to the manufacturing processes simulation. To this end, a state of the art will compose the first part of the chapter. In the second part, we address the issue of the contribution of the VR to the industrial simulation.

In a world in continuous evolution, the different industrial actors need to be reactive to remain competitive and to conquer new market trends. To achieve this, they are constrained to improve their way of industrial management, both at the strategic level, to adapt to technological advances and follow market trends. In this chapter, we introduce a new simulation method that makes it easy to understand the results of a given simulation. This is of crucial importance because the design stage of a manufacturing system usually implies not specialist actors. The objective of the chapter is to present the main advantages of using the virtual reality (VR) to the manufacturing processes simulation. To this end, a state of the art will compose the first part of the chapter. In the second part, we address the issue of the contribution of the VR to the industrial simulation.

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