Essay About Challenge And Good Idea

Simulation Report 1
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Post-Simulation Reflective
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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