Simulation concept, Advantages & Disadvantages
- 2. "A large number of scenarios and outcomes … are impossible to comprehend and evaluate without the help of a computer simulation model (Harrington and Tumay, 2000)." Concept of Simulation
- 3. Simulation Acting out an actual or probable real life condition, event, or situation to find a cause of a past occurrence (such as an accident), or to forecast future effects (outcomes) of assumed circumstances or factors. Simulation is an imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system. Simulation is normally used to assess the current, or predict the future, performance of a business process. Simulation typically uses statistical and computer modelling to investigate the performance of a business process either for a new situation or to improve an existing set of processes. Concept of Simulation
- 4. A simulation may be performed through Solving a set of equations (a mathematical model) Constructing a physical (scale) model Games (such as war games) Computer graphics model (such as an animated flowchart) Concept of Simulation
- 5. Advantages of simulation New policies, operating procedures, information flows and so on can be explored without disrupting ongoing operation of the real system. New hardware designs, physical layouts, transportation systems can be tested without committing resources for their acquisition. Time can be compressed or expanded to allow for a speed- up or slow-down of the phenomenon( clock is self-control).
- 6. Advantages of simulation Insight can be obtained about interaction of variables and important variables to the performance. Bottleneck analysis can be performed to discover where work in process, the system is delayed. A simulation study can help in understanding how the system operates. “What if” questions can be answered.
- 7. Disadvantages of simulation Model building requires special training Vendors of simulation software have been actively developing packages that contain models that only need input (templates). Simulation results can be difficult to interpret. Simulation modeling and analysis can be time consuming and expensive Many simulation software have output-analysis.