Success with Simulation
A definitive guide to process improvement success using simulation for healthcare, manufacturing, and warehousing
This book is a culmination of many years of experience in the field of simulation and process improvement. Beginning in the early 90s, I was fascinated with simulation and its ability to mitigate risks and improve efficiency. Back then, simulation was hard to use, cumbersome to implement, and was not widely available. Yet, simulation was, and will always be, a highly efficient medium for mitigating risks, optimizing flows, and improving efficiency.
This book is designed to provide a step by step approach to simulation. The approach enables both novice and experienced simulation professionals to be successful in their process improvement endeavors. Detailed steps from tool selection and goal definition, to data collection and model build out and analysis are explained. Pitfalls and potential problems are explained along with different mitigation strategies to avoid and correct each one. By applying tools from one industry to another I generated unique and effective solutions to complex problems.
The book covers;
- Selecting a simulation tool
- Data collection and simulation goals.
- Steps to successful modeling
- How to analyze and optimize the models.
- Detailed modeling techniques by industry
Throughout my journey I have applied simulation technology to many industries and a multitude of problems. From Banking to healthcare, and manufacturing to warehousing, I have built simulation models that represent reality to a high degree of accuracy. The developed models were used to improve, optimize and analyze different process flows and designs. Simulation projects don't always succeed due to many factors. With all the successes, I have seen simulation projects fail to produce the desired results, or generate the needed information for proper analysis.
Following the TQM and lean revolution, companies required lean methodology to be implemented. Yet, many saw the transition as too risky and different than the current way. Simulation was, and still is, the tool required to help in that transition by reducing the associated risk and proving to the skeptical that the transition is better than current status quo. Change is never easy, it is the natural transition to better things, but without change there is no progress.
