Delft University of Technology
Faculty Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering
Transport Technology / Logistic Engineering



A.A.C. van Wayenburg Simulatiemodel van het kopieerproces can de bibliotheek van de TU Delft.
Masters thesis, Report 94.3.LT.4261, Transport Technology, Logistic Engineering.


One of the activities of the Library of the Technical University Delft (BTUD) is the delivery of documents. A part of that is the delivery of copies from scientific journals to firms and institutions, which forms the largest part of the income of the Library. Due to the fact that subsidies will be on the same level and the costs keep on growing, the BTUD is trying to enlarge its own income. By partnership with other library's The BTUD is trying to get more requests for copies. Is it therefore possible to handle these requests within an acceptable period oftime for the customers?
In the next future growing the library will move to a larger building in the centre of the TU-campus. This gives the possibility to rearrange the copying process and the storage of scientific journals.
It is therefore necessary to create a simulation model with which the BTUD can get insight into the possibilities to optimise the copying proccss.

The copying process is, with the possible lay-out improvements as well as the future automation and the various organisatory processes, modelled in a simulation program. The program gives the user the possibility to create a storage and copying process and to test it afterwards. With the help of animation and outputfiles the configuration can be evaluated.

Verification and validation have shown us that the program is suited to gain more insight in the copying process. Conclusions should not be based directly the results of a simulation experiment. In this case comparisons of various situations can better be qualitatively defined.
A remarkable result is that it seems possible to handle a number of requests in the same period of time, not depending on whether these requests are available at the beginning of the day or arrive individualy during the day. This can reduce the delivery time by up to a day.


Reports on Logistic Engineering (in Dutch)
Modified: 2000.07.29; logistics@3mE.tudelft.nl , TU Delft / 3mE / TT / LT.