Malcolm Beaverstock
02-16-2009, 08:37 AM
I retired from General Mills in August of last year where I headed their Business Simulation group. I selected Flexsim as the General Mills standard and am now working with Flexsim. My primary focus is a new text book for simulation that I hope to have ready for this fall semester.
My approach is different from that used in current books as it focuses more on using simulation than being an in-depth course on the software. My concept for the book is similar to the way I’ve taught it in industry. It starts by getting students immersed in simulation right away by analyzing systems of various complexities without having to learn a lot about the application. The book is totally based on hands-on learning.
My current effort is accumulating the many exercises to be used throughout the book. They’re intended as classroom examples or assignments. The format for each example will be the same:
1.Description and Data (some advanced examples will have more data than needed).
2.Problem or issue to be resolved
It’s intended that the student will create a response to the problem by recommending a course of action based on the simulation analysis.
I would appreciate if you could share some examples based on your work that might make interesting examples. I‘ll use the concept but change the application and data to protect any confidential information. For example, I would re-cast a cereal production problem in the form of some other business such as nut and bolt manufacturing and use different numbers.
What I would like is a brief description of the application/ equipment and the problem. For example: cereal packing line with three baggers, cartoner, and casepacker – problem – determine the surge size given rates and reliability data. A copy of a model and data would be great as well. If you ‘ve simulated some smaller part of it may be a good example. I’m also looking for some examples, like the Flexsim demos, which students will open, change data, and run to solve a particular problem. Others will be descriptions from which students will build a simulation and answer a particular problem or issue.
Please send me any suggestions as soon as you can – but also send them later as you think of them -- I ‘ll be working on this for a while. Feel free to contact me by email (malb@flexsim.com) or phone (251-973-0631. Also forward this to anyone else who might be able to help.
My approach is different from that used in current books as it focuses more on using simulation than being an in-depth course on the software. My concept for the book is similar to the way I’ve taught it in industry. It starts by getting students immersed in simulation right away by analyzing systems of various complexities without having to learn a lot about the application. The book is totally based on hands-on learning.
My current effort is accumulating the many exercises to be used throughout the book. They’re intended as classroom examples or assignments. The format for each example will be the same:
1.Description and Data (some advanced examples will have more data than needed).
2.Problem or issue to be resolved
It’s intended that the student will create a response to the problem by recommending a course of action based on the simulation analysis.
I would appreciate if you could share some examples based on your work that might make interesting examples. I‘ll use the concept but change the application and data to protect any confidential information. For example, I would re-cast a cereal production problem in the form of some other business such as nut and bolt manufacturing and use different numbers.
What I would like is a brief description of the application/ equipment and the problem. For example: cereal packing line with three baggers, cartoner, and casepacker – problem – determine the surge size given rates and reliability data. A copy of a model and data would be great as well. If you ‘ve simulated some smaller part of it may be a good example. I’m also looking for some examples, like the Flexsim demos, which students will open, change data, and run to solve a particular problem. Others will be descriptions from which students will build a simulation and answer a particular problem or issue.
Please send me any suggestions as soon as you can – but also send them later as you think of them -- I ‘ll be working on this for a while. Feel free to contact me by email (malb@flexsim.com) or phone (251-973-0631. Also forward this to anyone else who might be able to help.