Simulation

Department of Industrial Engineering

Eskişehir Technical University

Dr. Müge Acar

msoyuoz@eskisehir.edu.tr
 Some questions

• What comes to your mind when you hear the word

“simulation”?

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 What is simulation?

• Wikipedia says:
“Simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world
process or system over time. The act of simulating something first
requires that a model be developed; this model represents the key
characteristics or behaviors/functions of the selected physical or
abstract system or process. The model represents the system
itself, whereas the simulation represents the operation of the
system over time.”

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 Some questions

• What comes to your mind when you hear the word

“simulation”?
• Have you seen simulations in your life before?

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 Examples

• Computer games?
• Flight simulators?
• ...

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 Some questions

• What comes to your mind when you hear the word

“simulation”?
• Have you seen simulations in your life before?
• Why do you think we need simulation in IE?

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How would you calculate how much you are going to
wait in a queue?

• Any assumptions?
• Are they valid?
• How can we check their validity?
How would you calculate how much you
are going to wait in queues if you visit
Disneyland?
 A queueing network?

• How to analyze them analytically?

• Assumptions?
 More questions on
• If you are a visitor:
• How would you calculate how much you are going to
wait in queues?
• …
• If you are a manager of Disneyland:
• How would you calculate the effect of having one
more attraction point on the queue lengths of all other
points?
• If you are a manager of Disneyland: How would you
decide on the effects of the entrance prices?
• …
 Other complicated systems?
• Hospitals
• Factories
• Inventory systems
• Project Management
• Logistics, supply chain and distribution systems
• Transportation models and traffic
• Biological and cellulary systems
• Risk analysis in finance, insurance, options pricing,
portfolio analysis etc.
• Call centers
• Large scale systems such as internet backbone, wireless
networks etc.
• …..
• http://wintersim.org
 The Nature of Simulation

• Most real-world systems are too complex to allow

realistic models to be evaluated analytically. These
models are usually studied by means of simulation.
• First, see whether you can solve the problem
analytically; if you cannot, then use simulation.
• Simulation is the technique that imitates the operations
of a complex real-world system where a computer is
generally used to evaluate a model numerically, and data
are gathered in order to estimate the desired true
characteristics of the model.

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 The Nature of Simulation

• Statistical analysis often uses data that is gathered in the past. Simulation is
based on statistical analysis of data that is generated on the future
observations of a system by imitating its operations.

• Simulation is one of the most widely used techniques in operations research,

management science and industrial engineering.

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 Advantages

• Simulation is often the only type of investigation for

complex real-world systems with stochastic elements
that cannot be analytically evaluated.
• It allows one to estimate the performance of a system
under a projected set of operating conditions.
• Alternative proposed system designs or alternative
operating policies can be compared via simulation.
• There is better control over experimental conditions in
simulation than there is in experimenting with the system
itself.
• Simulation allows one to study the system with a long
time frame due to time compression.

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 Disadvantages

• Each run of a simulation run provides an estimate and not the exact value of
model characteristics. An analytical model and its solution, if available, is
always preferable.
• Simulation models are often expensive and time-consuming to develop.
• The large volume of numbers produced or the persuasive impact of a realistic
animation often creates a tendency to place more confidence in the results
than it is justified.

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 Which is more likely?

• Getting a sum of 7 or 8 when two dice are rolled?

• Getting a 1 or 2 when a single die is rolled?

• We can easily find the probability of each event and compare.

• But let’s try to simulate:

– We need two dice!

• Since we don’t have a die we need to simulate the dice on a computer.

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 A static simulation
• Simulating the roll of two dice.
• Let U be a continuous random variable in the interval
(0,1).
• Then 6U is a continuous random variable in the interval
(0,6).
• Define FLOOR(x) as the largest integer that is less than
or equal to x.
• Then FLOOR(6U)+1 is a discrete random variable that
has the same probability mass function as the number in
the roll of a single die!
• Estimate the expected value of the sum of the numbers
that show up when two dice are rolled by simulation.
• Estimate the probability of getting a sum of 7.