i need a writer to make a presentation for me
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IE 468 / OR 442
Term Project
Report due date: By midnight before the presentation day
Presentation day: TBA
Conduct a simulation study on one of the following systems:
1) SIUE cafeteria in MUC
With frequent complaints from students about waiting times in lines during their short
lunch (or dinner) breaks, you are asked to find the most economic and effective ways to cut
average total time in system by 15%. To this end, your team must develop simulation
models, evaluate various configurations/scenarios, and propose the best one. To improve
performance of the system, you could modify the layout or the process, add more resource
units, or provide any suggestions to achieve the goal (you may not be able to achieve 15%
though, which is fine).
2) Any other system of your interest
In this case, you must submit a brief project proposal by 10/24 and get the instructor’s
approval.
Guidelines
1. Data collection & curve fitting: Visit the site during the busiest hours of operation (lunch
or dinner time) if possible. You must collect data about interarrival times to the cafeteria,
and service times in at least one vendor. For other processes, make reasonable
assumptions on their distributions based on some observations and/or interviews. You
may also have to make some assumptions in some parts of your simulation model that
are hard to quantify/model/program (e.g. limited data due to limited resource
availability, customers’ mental behavior, etc.). Please make the assumptions as realistic
as possible and provided some justification about your choice. For facilitating data
collection, there are some stopwatch apps available on App Store or Google Play such as
“StopWatch Xtreme Free” that are quite handy for recording interarrival/service times.
2. Model development, evaluation & recommendation: First, develop a simulation model
for the existing system (AS-IS), and verify* your model. Validate** your model using
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performance measures such as average time in system. Compare simulation results with
actually observed results to check if your model is valid. (See below for details about
verification and validation). Second, modify your model that accommodates your ideas
for improvements and measure the improvements gained by the modified models (TO-
BE). You may need to investigate several modified configurations/scenarios. Summarize
all these suggestions, the improvement achieved, and ball-park estimated cost & time to
implement those suggestions. Finally, provide your final recommendation.
3. Presentation and report: Each team will be given about 15 minutes for presentation.
Every team member must present his or her work in the context of the whole project.
Clarify the role of each member in the report (title page, TOC, etc.). The report must be
succinct yet self-explanatory, describing all details you cannot provide during
presentation. Only the team leader needs to upload your team’s ppt, final report, and
other supplementary materials (if any) by the due date via BB.
Verification* and Validation**
Once you develop your AS-IS model, you need to verify and validate it. Please see the appendix
to understand how to perform verification and validation. You need to describe how you verified
and validated your simulation model with a few examples for each.
Some examples:
- You may compare the sample history data with the data you collected on the spot
(although they may not closely match due to the stochastic nature of the system).
- You can also validate your model using some key performance measures, such as average
time in system and queue length. Compare simulation results with actually observed
results to check if your model is valid. For example, you may collect actual times in system
of about 30-40 customers and compare the average with that obtained from the simulation
run.
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IE 468 / OR 442
Grading Criteria for Term Project
1. Oral Presentation (20 pts)
Organization
Clarity
Professionalism
Addressing Questions
2. Term Paper (80 pts)
Writing (20 pts)
o Organization and Comprehensiveness
o Clarity and readability
Significance of Results (10 pts)
Technical Quality of Simulation Steps (50 pts)
(Use these named section headings in the paper)
I. Title Page: Project Title and Team Members
II. Problem Statement and Objectives of the Study
III. The As-Is System: Layout and Entity/Process Flow
IV. Data Collection, Curve Fitting, and Assumptions
V. Modeling, Programming, and Animation in ARENA
VI. Verification* of Program (illustrate with a few examples) and Validation** of
Model (compare key performance measures of the simulation model with ones of
the existing system)
VII. The To-Be System(s)
VIII. Experiments and Output Analyses
IX. Interpretations and Recommendations
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Appendix: Verification & Validation
* Verification: Concerned with building the model right (debugging). It is utilized in the
comparison of the conceptual model to the computer representation that implements that
conception. It asks the questions:
- Is the model implemented correctly in the computer?
- Are the input parameters and logical structure of the model correctly represented?
Verification Process
There are several general ways to verify simulation models. Some are applicable to your project,
some are not:
- Have the code checked by someone other than the programmer.
- Make a flow diagram which includes each logically possible action a system can take
when an event occurs, and follow the model logic for each action for each event type.
- Closely examine the model output for reasonableness under a variety of settings of the
input parameters. Have the code print out a wide variety of output statistics.
- Have the computerized model print the input parameters at the end of the simulation, to
be sure that these parameter values have not been changed inadvertently.
- Make the computer code as self-documenting as possible. Give a precise definition of
every variable used, and a general description of the purpose of each major section of code.
More specifically, you may perform extreme/stress tests with various input parameters. For
example:
- Create only a single entity and follow the entity step-by-step to be sure that the model
logic and data are correct.
- Try a deterministic scenario and estimate the output; e.g., replace some or all model
parameters with constants in order to predict system behavior.
- Check how the model behaves under extreme conditions, e.g., introducing only one part
type, increasing/decreasing interarrival or service times, etc.
o Make effective use of the animation to reveal problems.
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** Validation: Concerned with building the right model. It is utilized to determine that a model
is an accurate representation of the real system. Validation is usually achieved through the
calibration of the model, an iterative process of comparing the model to actual system behavior
and using the discrepancies between the two. This process is repeated until model accuracy is
judged to be acceptable.
(Source: Notes on Verification/Validation by Herman D. Hughes