Prescriptive Analytics- Creating a tool for Planning Production

Hello,

First time poster.

Just a bit of background:

I'm currently studying Mechanical Engineering (Final Year), and have decided to base my project on Prescriptive Analytics within the Manufacturing Industry.

I undertook a placement at a Metal's manufacturer and while on placement put together a capacity planning tool.

This tool was made in Excel (please don't hate, it was the only software available to me) and essentially told the testing planner where constraints were, e.g. the planner would input which testing machine material would be put into and the spreadsheet would output a graph which show's which machines are over capacity. From there, the planner could then change which machines the material would be processed on to reduce this over capacity situation and distribute the material.

As I'm sure you've all realised, this relied on input by the planner so is more of a descriptive analytical tool.

For my Final Year Project, I've decided that I'd like to carry on this work, but making a more autonomous system, whereby an algorithm tells the planner what the best method of testing material is based on processing time through testing. Essentially, create a descriptive analytics tool.

I have the routes which the product needs to go down for testing. These routes are based upon 10 specs, and from these 10 specs, they can only be processed through 6 machines.

I have also managed to gather the information regarding the times for every stage of testing. I'd like to keep this feature as it allows for future time studies and "what if?" Scenarios to optimise production.

The end goal is to have a system where I can put in the product mix based on it's physical dimensions and quantity, and have an output which tells the planner which material should be processed in which machine for the fastest times.

I've look at the tutorials, using MATLAB SimEvents, playing with decision trees and truth tables for setting up the requirements based on customer spec, but I've struggled to get my head around it with regards to this example.

100% honesty, I think I've bitten off more than I can chew. The original model was relatively

simple to put together as it relied more on people and understanding the process. Hopefully it is possible using MATLAB.

Any and all input/ guidance would be greatly appreciated, and any queries let me know.

Thanks in Advance.

TL:DR- Student needs to create descriptive analytic tool to plan quickest method of testing material in medium product mix environment.