arena

PROJECT PROPOSAL & REPORT GUIDELINE

IE 467/567, Fall 2019

PROPOSAL DUE OCTOBER 11, 2019 AND REPORT DUE ON NOVEMBER 22, 2019 @ 11:59pm

The aim of this semester group project is to help a group of learners(team) to understand how to

apply Discrete Event Simulation Modelling for a real-life system. In this project, learners have

the freedom to choose any particular real-world system and conduct a detailed modeling and

simulation study. Learners can choose their own project either from the industry or service

sectors. The number of resources could be two or more. The calling population could be finite or

infinite. Each team should compose of minimum of three (3) and maximum of five (5) members.

Important Notes:

After you have selected a system for your project, first of all, with outmost importance, approach

the organization ask them politely whether they are willing to participate in the project and would

allow your team to collect data.

If they give permission, please follow their guidelines/instructions while you are collecting

data as a team, please be respectful towards every members of the organization all the time, as

you would be representing NMSU Industrial Engineering Department.

And if they are not willing to participate in the project, please don’t claim any further

explanations and be as POLITE and GENTLE as possible, then start looking for other option,

that your team may use for modelling.

The following list should be used as guideline while practicing the project activities:

A. Choose the Modelling System:

a. The system utilized could be a bank, a hospital, a factory, a small workshop, a

taxi company, a post office, a restaurant, a coffee shop, a drive-thru, a traffic

signal etc.

b. Capture the system semantics (entities, routes, resources, etc.).

c. Identify the system behavior and queue discipline.

d. Conceptualize the system using block diagram(s) to understand the work flow

pattern.

e. Conduct brain storming sessions as team for every part of this project. And

outline each of the team members duties through the span of the project.

B. Collect the system data:

a. The data utilized should be collected during the various hours to capture true

system arrival patterns. Your data should be at least 2 consecutive business

days. The longer the period and the more observations the better.

b. Record entity arrival times, waiting times, service times, resource(‘s) idle time.

c. Collect or estimate cost data: cost of the resource, waiting cost for entities, the

cost of losing a customer for the business. Team can use their own reasonable

estimate if necessary.

d. Use Arena’s Input Analyzer to choose the appropriate Probability distributions for

input data, if necessary, could include further data analysis.

C. Build simulation model in ARENA:

a. Identify all needed entities, attributes, resources, locations, routes, etc.

b. Define the simulation structure and logical rules, such as a single queue, multiple

queues, number of servers, system’s disciplines.

c. Generate random variables based on the identified distributions of input data for

interarrival times and service times.

d. Implement and debug your simulation model in ARENA

D. Verify and Validate your Model:

a. Use all verification and validation tools available in Arena to maximize the

robustness of your simulation model: output analyze, process analyze, OptQuest,

animation tools etc.

b. Suggest an alternative or an enhanced model as a team that you all think should

outperform or improve the original system: suggest different scenarios, add or

remove resources, adjust the resource time, change the system logic

c. Compare the suggested model with the old one.

d. Conduct cost analysis and suggest an optimum system’s design.

Project Proposal: (5% of the total course grade)

Address the following questions in the Project Proposal:

1. Write your Teams Name/Number and list full names of all students who will work on this

project.

2. What are your individual strengths (for each of the teammates working on your team

project)? Example: My strengths are optimization and simulation modelling. Somebody

else’s strength may be written communication and previous experience with Arena

simulation or model animation.

3. Briefly explain, how the system you have selected operates its business and why you think

the operation you have selected could be analyzed using Discrete Event Simulation Model

instead of continuous time or mixed continuous time simulation model?

4. Provide a block diagram (you can use PowerPoint/Visio or any other tool) to demonstrate

the operation flow through the system you are planning to model.

5. List all the key components of the simulation model, including entities (possibly different

types), resources (various kinds of resources), queues, useful output performance

measures.

6. Timeline of the Overall Project.

7. List any other useful information that you may think, would explain your project further.

Project Presentation

During the Second week of November 2019 based on posted schedule, each team is required to

give a 20 to 30 minutes project presentation where you are expected to give an overview of the

project, explain the Arena Simulation Model and present the analysis that you have carried out to

evaluate the system model. All the team members should present some part of the work during

presentation. And the instructor would ask to follow up question during or after the presentation.

The Presentation slides should be prepared using Microsoft PowerPoint

Project Report:

The final report should be:

• 8-10 pages long (without Appendix)

• Font size should be at 11 for text

• Use single spacing.

• Use Arial for titles and Times New Roman for text.

• Use ASME as reference style.

The final report outline should be as follows:

1. Executive summary

2. Table of Contents

3. Table of Figures and Tables

4. Description of the system under study

5. Description of the simulation model

6. Description of the suggested model

7. Description of scenarios

8. Analysis of simulation results including cost analysis, system configuration

9. Recommendations

10. Conclusions

11. Appendix

Only one member of your team needs to submit the following items in a zipped file on behave of

all of team:

1. Project Report in PDF format.

2. All the Arena Modelling File(.doe)

3. All the other files used for analyzing system input and output.