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Ever wonder what the little lightbulb next to a code box meant? Have you ever noticed? Talk about small and mighty! The lightbulb is a feature in AnyLogic that contains keywords to help a modeler complete Java code. Recently Benjamin Schumann, an expert AnyLogic modeler shared his thoughts on the AnyLogic lightbulb in his blog.

Seeking educational opportunities to enhance your work with AnyLogic? Pleased to announce an extremely valuable textbook, recently released. Operations and Supply Chain Management with AnyLogic 7.2 by Dr. Dmitry Ivanov, Professor of Supply Chain Management at the Berlin School of Economics and Law is available now in digital format for FREE. Dr. Ivanov has authored and contributed to dozens of current textbooks and is known for his expertise in logistics and supply chain optimization, supply chain design and risk management, supply chain scheduling, mathematical optimization and control theory, production management, and ERP and APS systems. The focus of the textbook is to introduce MBA and M.Sc. Students into the basic principles of using simulation for decision-making, however, is also ideal for all AnyLogic users and self-teachers.

This year’s AnyLogic Conference allowed us to capture Andrei Borshchev, CEO, Nikolay Churkov, Head of Development, and Timofey Popkov, Director of Business Development providing an overview of new features and what to expect from AnyLogic’s near future. Now, these video presentations are available for your review on our YouTube channel. The videos cover Built-in Database, Fluid Library, Pedestrian Library and GIS improvements, Road Traffic Library and anyLogistix, our newest product powered by AnyLogic but specific to the supply chain and logistics application area.

The main new feature added is the Road Traffic Library. The Road Traffic Library allows you to simulate vehicle traffic on roads. The library supports detailed physical level modeling of vehicle movement. Each vehicle represents an agent that can have its behavioral patterns inside. The library allows the users to simulate: • Vehicle movement on roads, taking into account driving regulations. • Traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, and priorities at junctions. • Parking lots and parking by the road side. • Public transport movements.

AnyLogic 7 in Three Days, the first practical textbook on AnyLogic 7 from AnyLogic developers, is now available in Portuguese through Amazon.com. The book is written by Ilya Grigoryev, Head of Training at AnyLogic and the author of AnyLogic documentation and AnyLogic training courses. Consider this, your first step in learning AnyLogic software. The book is structured around three examples: a consumer market model, an epidemiology model, and an airport model. Some theory behind all three modeling methods is also provided in the book. Through reading the book and completing the exercises, you will create models of pedestrians and discrete events using business process flowcharts, draw diagrams of stock and flow, and build agent-based models. You'll find AnyLogic 7 in Three Days to be the perfect accompaniment to the FREE Personal Learning Edition (PLE) of AnyLogic software. Whether you are a commercial user, student, or professor teaching AnyLogic in the classroom, let this be your guide.

Being #26 in last years’ Fortune 500 list, Cardinal Health is a billion dollar pharmaceutical distribution and logistics company. Its clients are hospitals, pharmacies, physicians, and individual consumers. They face a multitude of typical distribution warehouse challenges that are further complicated by the nature of pharmaceutical products, which are smaller in size, consumable, expensive, and could be life critical. Company’s warehouses have narrow passages, and workers operate big multilevel trolleys. That increases the probability of employees’ mistakes and makes these mistakes costly.

The Handbook of Operations Research Applications at Railroads (International Series in Operations Research & Management Science) is the first book to offer a complete spectrum of the role that operations research has played and can play in the improvement of North American freight railroads. It explores how decisions are made at railroads, contains examples of the mathematical programming formulations to the complex problems, and provides insights into real-world applications. AnyLogic is featured in two chapters: Simulation of Line of Road Operations and Terminal Simulation written by Roger Baugher, who has worked to apply Operations Research tools to railroads for over 40 years as both a railroad employee and consultant (B. Patty, Preface). Roger was instrumental in the development of Algorithmic Blocking and Classification (ABC) while at Norfolk Southern, was the first recipient of the Railroad Applications Special Interest Group (RASIG) Award for his contributions to OR in the railroad industry and is a Franz Edelman Laureate. In addition to Norfolk Southern, Roger Baugher applied his understanding of network optimization approaches to various forms of the transportation organizations, such as BNSF, American Airlines, Pacer Stacktrain, Conrail where he played an integral part in developing the Conrail Network Analysis Model (CNAM)

Centrotherm Photovoltaics AG is a global supplier of technology and equipment for the photovoltaics, semiconductor, and microelectronics industries.

The company needed to identify the best configuration of the automated production line and factory, to minimize costs and maximize throughput and reliability. Centrotherm needed to avoid possible bottlenecks in the material flow and optimize in-factory logistics.

Grapevine leafroll disease (GLRD) threatens the economic sustainability of the grape and wine industry in the United States and around the world. This viral disease reduces yield, delays fruit ripening, and affects wine quality. Shady S. Atallah, Miguel I. Gomez,Jon M. Conrad, and Jan P. Nyrop from the University of New Hampshire published a Plant-level, Spatial, Bioeconomic Model of Plant Disease Difussion and Control: Grapevine Leafroll Disease in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. The project examines the impact of alternative disease control strategies on distributions of bioeconomic outcomes and ranks them based on the vineyard expected net present values (ENPVs). Using simulation modeling them to analyze alternative disease control strategies that would not be possible using classical approaches.

At the AnyLogic Conference 2014, Kyle Johnson, Global Business Services in Advanced Analytics and Optimization at IBM partnered with Otsuka Pharmaceuticals, presented a “Multi-Agent-Based Simulation of a Complex Ecosystem of Mental Health Care.” To date, the research paper was published in the Journal of Medical Systems and received the attention of the United States House of Representatives [1]. The project revolves around the housing cycle of the United State’s Severely and Persistently Mentally Ill (SPMI). An SPMI patient defines someone with a diagnosis of Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, or Major Depressive Disorder, and this group constitutes about 1.7% of the US population. To better understand the condition and possible improvements, IBM Global Research and Otsuka Pharmaceuticals used an agent-based approach to model the SPMI living situations over the second half of the 20th century.