Academic articles

The aim of this study is twofold. Firstly, to demonstrate how combining computer simulation, data from multiple data sources, and statistical methods, can extend the understanding of the issues associated with process modelling and analysis in healthcare environment, and therefore contribute to improvements in resource utilisation and safety in hospitals. Secondly, to provide simple re-useable methodology for cross-validation of multiple data-sources such as interviews, hospital IT data management systems and simulation results. The insights from this study are threefold. Firstly, the accuracy of the estimates of duration of cannulation obtained through the interviews with the nurses and the chemotherapy unit manager is very high. Secondly, although the duration estimates were precise, the process descriptions obtained through interviews with nurses were oversimplified or incomplete and therefore did not realistically reflect complexity of a medical process with a significant number of relatively rarely occurring exceptions. Thirdly, by combining multiple data-sources it is possible to reduce costs associated with observation as a most expensive data-capturing approach. A detailed exposure of the methodology including step-by-step description is provided to facilitate conducting similar research in hospitals in the future.

The paper first discusses the importance of discrete event simulation (DES) in the business school curriculum. It next notes how small Macintosh lap tops have become increasingly popular among business students. We next discuss what DES software is available on the Mac, first directly, then indirectly by running DES software for Windows in some way on the Mac. Noting that there is not much simple DES software on the Mac, but yet a great demand for such software from many business students, we turn to the transfer of one pedagogical software system, aGPSS, from Windows to the Mac. We here first give a brief historic background of aGPSS. Next we discuss some of the problems encountered when transferring aGPSS to the Mac. The paper ends with a brief discussion of some pedagogical aspects of using aGPSS on the Mac in the teaching of basic management science.

Production planning is a complex problem that is typically decomposed into decisions carried out at different control levels. The various methods used for production planning often assume a static environment, therefore, the plans developed may not be feasible when shop floor events change dynamically. In such an operating environment, a system simulation model updated with real-time data can be used to validate a proposed plan. In this paper, we propose a framework to evaluate and validate the feasibility of high-level production plans using a simulation model at a lower level thereby providing a base for improving the upper level plan. The idea is demonstrated with an assembly plant where the aggregate plan is evaluated using discrete event simulation (DES) of shop floor operations with resources allocated according to constraints imposed by the aggregate plan. We also discuss standardized integration interfaces required between simulations and production planning tools.

In this paper, we present a discrete event simulation model of the Viennese subway network with capacity constraints and time-dependent demand. Demand, passenger transfer and travel times as well as vehicle travel and turning maneuver times are stochastic. Capacity restrictions apply to the number of waiting passengers on a platform and within a vehicle. Passenger generation is a time-dependent Poisson process which uses hourly origin-destination-matrices based on mobile phone data. A statistical analysis of vehicle data revealed that vehicle inter-station travel times are not time- but direction-dependent. The purpose of this model is to support strategic decision making by performing what-if-scenarios to gain managerial insights. Such decisions involve how many vehicles may be needed to achieve certain headways and what are the consequences. There are trade-offs between customer satisfaction (e.g. travel time) and the transportation system provider’s view (e.g. mileage). First results allow for a bottleneck and a sensitivity analysis.

This paper documents a work on all-purpose discrete event simulation tools evaluation. Selected tools must be suitable for process design (e.g. manufacturing or services industries). Rather than making specific judgments of the tools, authors tried to measure the intensity of usage or presence in different sources, which they called “popularity”. It was performed in several different ways, including occurrences in the WWW and scientific publications with tool name and vendor name. This work is an upgrade to the same study issued 5 years ago (2011), which in its turn was also an upgrade of 10 years ago (in 2006). It is obvious that more popularity does not assure more quality, or being better to the purpose of a simulation tool; however, a positive correlation may exist between them. The result of this work is a short list, of 19 commercial simulation tools, with probably the nowadays’ most relevant ones.

In today’s rapidly changing technological scenario, tech giants revise their strategic alignment every couple of years. As a result, their workforce has to be adapted to the organization’s strategy. Members of the workforce who are neither relevant to the strategic alignment, nor can be made relevant by reskilling, have to be either outplaced (i.e. placed in an another job within organization) or separated from the organization. In geographies like Europe, where the cost of separation is very high, it becomes very important to make the right decision for each employee. In this paper, we describe a simulation based methodology to find the probability and time of outplacement of an employee. These numbers are inputs to a global problem of making the optimal decision for the entire workforce.

With the advances in the information and computing technologies, the ways the manufacturing enterprise systems are being managed are changing. More integration and adoption of the system perspective push further towards a more flattened enterprise. This, in addition to the varying levels of aggregation and details and the presence of the continuous and discrete types of behavior, created serious challenges for the use of the existing simulation tools for simulating the modern manufacturing enterprise system. The commonly used discrete event simulation (DES) techniques face difficulties in modeling such integrated systems due to increased model complexity, the lack of data at the aggregate management levels, and the unsuitability of DES to model the financial sectors of the enterprise. System dynamics (SD) has been effective in providing the needs of top management levels but unsuccessful in offering the needed granularity at the detailed operational levels of the manufacturing system. On the other hand the existing hybrid continuous-discrete tools are based on certain assumptions that do not fit the requirements of the common decision making situations in the business systems.

Sortie Generation Rate (SGR) is an important metric for air dominance. Lockheed Martin must demonstrate that the Air System can fly the sorties during an allotted time and deliver the capability to the war fighter. Aircraft turnaround time- the time between when the aircraft touches down, refuels, rearms, and completes inspections in order to release the aircraft, to aircraft wheels up - plays an important role in achieving the SGR requirement.

A tunnel boring machine (TBM) is the primary resource in a tunnel construction project and generally its advance rate is equal to the performance rate of the whole project. Regarding previous studies, the utilization factor of TBMs is approximately 50% most of the time. The process of repair and maintenance of various parts of the machine and the logistic equipment takes 50% of the time. This case study aims to simulate the whole process of TBM tunneling in Ahwas subway project and find out how different scenarios of repair and maintenance can affect the utilization factor of the TBM. The model is developed using discrete-event simulation (DES) method.

Chipotle Mexican Grill is a fast causal restaurant chain headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1993, they now have over 1,700 locations across America, as well as internationally. Although the “integrity” of their food is a fundamental part of their business strategy, according to both of their co-CEO’s, throughput is also a key factor of focus.