Measuring Complexity in Manufacturing: Integrating Entropic Methods, Programming and Simulation

This research addresses complexity in manufacturing systems from an entropic perspective for production improvement. The main objective is to develop and validate a methodology that develops an entropic metric of complexity in an integral way in production environments, through simulation and programming techniques. The methodological proposal is composed of six stages: (i) Case study, (ii) Hypothesis formulation, (iii) Discrete event simulation, (iv) Measurement of entropic complexity by applying Shannon’s information theory, (v) Entropy analysis, and (vi) Statistical analysis by ANOVA. The results confirm that factors such as production sequence and product volume significantly influence the structural complexity of the workstations, with station A being less complex (0.4154 to 0.9913 bits) compared to stations B and C, which reached up to 2.2084 bits. This analysis has shown that optimizing production scheduling can reduce bottlenecks and improve system efficiency. Furthermore, the developed methodology, validated in a case study of the metalworking sector, provides a quantitative framework that combines discrete event simulation and robust statistical analysis, offering an effective tool to anticipate and manage complexity in production. In synthesis, this research presents an innovative methodology to measure static and dynamic complexity in manufacturing systems, with practical application to improve efficiency and competitiveness in the industrial sector. © 2025 by the authors.