Justification
Marvin,
Unless we know the exact nature of the application it’s impossible to provide a precise argument to justify the purchase and use of simulation. However, we can offer some general arguments that might encourage your boss to use simulation. Also, we’d be happy to meet with you and your boss to SHOW you how Flexsim is used, which I ‘m confident will warm him up to using the tool.
We have found that the more complex a process is, the greater the need is to employ computer-based tools to study and improve the system. While spreadsheets perform many complex calculations, their use of average numbers to represent arrivals, activity times, and resource availability does not allow them to reflect the randomness and interdependence that resources share in reality. Simulation, however, does allow randomness and interdependence. As a result, production processes that are characterized by one or all of the four statements below will always benefit from simulation, where “benefit” is defined as producing more products per unit of time and at lower cost (than previously produced).
Processes described by one or all of the following will always benefit from using simulation:
1.High volume or rate of production
2.High costs associated with the flow or movement of production
3.Change in production demands
4.High percentage of randomness within the production process
In addition to producing more products at lower cost, organizations and individuals using simulation gain a greater insight into the system being studied, which in-turn helps a manager or engineer predict and control the system with greater reliability.
A simulation model of any manufacturing, material handling, or logistics system or process can be created using Flexsim's drag and drop model building objects. With Flexsim you can determine the capacity of your entire plant, manufacturing line, or warehouse. The software will allow you to balance labor and equipment requirements. You will be able to manage bottlenecks, solve excessive work-in-process problems, justify capital expenditures, establish proper inventory levels, improve order picking systems, and optimize production rates.
The power and beauty of Flexsim is that your ideas for improving a process can be simulated, tested, and justified prior to implementing them in the actual system. The results of each simulation can be analyzed graphically through 3D animation, and through statistical reports and graphs, which are both excellent for communicating a model's purpose and results to technical and non-technical audiences. Flexsim end-users become problems solvers because they understand the cause-and-effect relationships of the systems they manage. Through using simulation to study a process, Flexsim end-users can confidently communicate their assumptions, findings, conclusions, and future plans of action to colleagues, bosses, or clients about how to improve the system.
A “bias for action” is a characteristic of organizations that have been well managed over time. They are organizations always looking for methods, people, and tools to improve what they do and how they do it. Simulation is perhaps the single most pragmatic behavior that innovative companies can apply to improving their ongoing processes. It's both a tool and practice that has the potential to immediately generate a ten, hundred, or thousand-fold return. A bias for action is also a characteristic of individuals who use simulation, as they become the company’s resident “problem solver,” as noted in the previous paragraph.
All the best,
Roger
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thats not normal.
