Embodiments simulate a manufacturing resource including a cable by creating a polyline model of the cable that includes a collection of points. For each point, there is an associated point mass and zero mass sphere, and an assigned elasticity and torsional stiffness between the point and adjacent points. Position and orientation of a start point and an end point of the points is defined based upon position in three dimensional (3D) space of a manufacturing resource. In turn, a simulation of the cable for a time step is performed by computing forces on each point using: (i) the associated point mass, (ii) the associated zero mass sphere, (iii) the assigned elasticity and torsional stiffness between the point and adjacent points, and (iv) the defined position and orientation of the start point and end point. Performing the simulation determines position in 3D space of each point based on the computed forces.