Simulation Report 1

Post-Simulation Reflective

Report

Balancing Process Capacity

What strategy did you use in Challenge 1? Please discuss and refer to your

results.

For Challenge 1, my strategy was quite simple; I would first get a good idea of how

the Simulation works by dividing the budget equally among the three stations. From

then onwards, by using the concepts of capacity utilisation and process analysis, I

would aim to achieve maximum capacity utilisation and maximum total profit.

In Challenge 1, there was constant customer demand, constant customer arrival

rate and fixed performance at the three service stations. Hence, it was relatively

simpler than Challenge 2 which involved variable demand and variable

performance at the service stations.

Thus, with my strategy in mind, I went on to allocate an equal budget among the

three service stations. Now that I reflect back, that straightforward strategy might

not have been the best one as I should have put more thoughts into coming up with

a smarter strategy. Nevertheless, it was a starting point, a starting point whose

results indicated that I was investing too much money on Vacuum station and Wash

station ( as their capacity utilisation percentages were fluctuating intensely) and not

enough money on the Hand Dry station ( as it was showing maximum capacity

utilisation throughout the day.) For this Run, my total profit was $645.

With these results in mind, I allocated more money in the Hand Dry station whilst

putting less into the Vacuum and the Wash stations. This proved to be a good

decision as my total profit went up from $645 to $755. Not only that, my Cycle Time

decreased drastically and my throughput rate increased respectably. In Run 1, I

was only able to service 30 cars per hour. However, with the changes in budget

allocation, my throughput rate rose up to 50 cars per hour. This means that there

were lesser formation of bottlenecks as well.

After learning how to maximise capacity utilisation, it didn’t take long to achieve

both maximum utilisation and maximum profits. For the next Runs, I continued

allocating more and more money to the Hand Dry station while working out what

was the best possible distribution of funds to the other two stations. I learnt that the

Wash Station did not require as much investment as the Vacuum Station. In fact,

after trial and error and carefully analysing the Comparison charts, I was able to

achieve maximum utilisation and profits of $825.

What strategy did you use in Challenge 2? Please discuss and refer to your

results.

The Challenge 2 was more difficult than Challenge 1 as it involved varying

demands and varying performance. Even though I was aware that it was not similar

to Challenge 1, as a start, I allocated the same amount of investment which

achieved the maximum level of capacity utilisation and profits in Challenge 1 into

each station. The ensuing result was acceptable with the first two stations achieving

an almost optimum utilisation. The only less-than-satisfactory performance was that

of the Hand Dry station, as it only achieved an average utilisation of 70%.

In further attempts, after analysing and comparing the results, I found out that

allocating a budget to $1,100,000 to the Hand Dry Station brought about optimum

results. By keeping this budget in this station almost constant, I proceeded to

allocate the remaining funds into the other two stations. After several runs, I was

able to identify the repetitive outcomes and also was able to make a decision

accordingly. I did start by trial and error for Challenge 2. However, after a number of

attempts, I was able to predict the outcome of my next decisions. Hence, with this

strategy, I allocated $1,325,000 to the Vacuum Station, $575,000 to the Wash

Station, $1,100,000 to the Hand Dry station and achieved a personal best profit of

$695. This strategy also provided me with a high utilisation rate.

How challenge 2 is different to Challenge 1? Please discuss by referring to

your results.

As discussed earlier, Challenge 2 involves variability whereas Challenge 1 does

not. In Challenge 1, it was a very simple type of simulation as the solution to

achieve optimum utilisation and profit was straightforward. In Challenge 2, I

witnessed while watching the animation of the simulation the moving around of the

bottleneck due to variability and hence was able to witness the impact of process

and demand variability. Challenge 2 was more interesting and reflecting for me than

Challenge 1 in that Challenge 2 provides a better understanding of the impact of

variability. It showed that both process and demand variabilities are

disadvantageous to managing