Formulating a Simulation Project Proposal

Chapter3

Developing Missions and Strategies

Mission statements tell an organization where it is going

Organization’s purpose for being Answers ‘What do we provide

society?’ Provides boundaries and focus Once the organization's mission has

been decided, each functional area determines its supporting mission.

The Strategy tells the organization how to get there

Factors Affecting Mission

Mission

Philosophy and Values

Profitability and

Growth

Public Image

Benefit to Society

Customers

Environment

Arnold Palmer Hospital

Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children provides state-of-the-art, family centred healthcare focused on restoring the joy of childhood in an environment of compassion, healing, and hope.

Strategic Process

Organization’s

Mission

Marketing Mission

Operations Mission

Product design Mission

Quality MGT Mission

Process Design Mission

Location Mission

Etc.

Finance/ Accounting

Mission

Strategy

• Action plan to achieve mission

• Functional areas have strategies

• Strategies exploit opportunities and strengths, neutralize threats, and avoid weaknesses

The Strategy tells the organization how to get there

SWOT Analysis

Analysis

Mission

External Opportuniti

es

External Threats

Strategy

Internal Weakness

es

Internal Strengths

Strategy Development and Implementation

• Identify strategic objectives.• Identify key Success Factors and Core Competencies• Build and staff the organization• Integrate Operation Management with other activities

Strategies for Competitive Advantage

• Differentiation: better, or at least different• Cost leadership: cheaper• Response: rapid response

Operations Managers translate these strategies concepts into tangible tasks to be implemented and accomplished

Linking Operational Change to Strategic Objectives

The Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan and Norton, 1996)

It is a performance measurement tool and we can use it as a method of identifying business processes for improvement in alignment with strategic objectives.

Strategic objectives are developed across 4 perspectives:

1. The financial perspective

2. The customer perspective

3. The internal (business process) perspective

4. The learning and growth perspective

The Balanced Scorecard

The financial perspective• Traditional methods used by external agencies to

measure the organization’s performance.• The focus is only on historical performance.

The customer perspective• Customer satisfaction in terms of price, quality and

speed (competitive advantage)

The Balanced Scorecard

The internal (business process) perspective• Objectives of this perspective are developed after

formulating the objectives of the financial and customer perspectives.

• This perspective provides a link between the financial and customer perspectives (external perspectives) and the capabilities of the internal business process.

The learning and growth perspective• Provides a forward looking measure on the ability of the

organization in terms of people and system to learn and grow (learning new methods or producing new products)

The Role of Simulation Modelling in Deriving a Balanced Scorecard

• Simulation Modelling is associated as a tool to assist in business process improvement.

• Simulation Modelling is used to identify the complex cause and effect linkage between the internal business processes and the external customer perspective.

• Simulation Modelling can be used to measure the level of effects that the business process has on the external perspectives (Sensitivity Analysis could be used)

Determining the level of usage of the Simulation Model

Do we always need to build a Simulation Model?

The level of usage categories are as follows• Problem definition: a process map could be enough

• Demonstration: (Training purposes or to demonstrate capabilities) an animated model would be enough

• Scenarios: to assess different system behaviour over a number of scenarios. Limited use of database. Output analysis is not needed

• Ongoing Decision Support: Full developed simulation model

Managing the Simulation Project

Lack of communication between the modeler and the client team (The Model User and The Data Provider) could cause a project to fail.

The project management process includes 4 areas:1- Estimation: • To break down the project into the main simulation project

stages.• Estimate the required resources and compare them to the

available resources.• Make sure that the project finished on time within the given

cost.

Managing the Simulation Project

2- Scheduling/Planning:• When activities should occur.

3- Monitoring and control:• Ensure on-time completion

4- Documentation: • Interim progress reports• Recording and changes to specifications• Coding should be documented• The results of the analysis• Technical report on how to use the model• etc

The Simulation Project Proposal

Study Objectives:• A number of specific study objective should be stated• To set the scope of the study

Data Collection and Process Mapping:• The modeller should prepare a specific data requirements.• It is useful at this stage to identify the source of information,

its form and any personnel responsible for supplying them.

Modelling Input Data:• To specify the type of statistical analysis used for modelling

input data.• A forecasting model may require that data fitted to a suitable

probability distribution.

The Simulation Project Proposal

Building the model:• The software package should be specified.

Validation and Verification:• Verification and debugging time can be difficult to predict.• Estimation of verification time could be made from the

understanding to the complexity and the size of the problem.• The analyst might need time to validate the model by

meeting different people who are familiar with the problem.• The type of sensitivity analysis should be defined in the

project proposal.

The Simulation Project Proposal

Experimentation and Analysis:• The number of experimentation on the affects of input

variables on output variables should be specified.• Experiments should be clearly defined including the analysis

used and the time needed.

Implementation:• The results of the simulation should be reported, a

presentation may be needed.• An implementation plan may be specified.• Recommendations could be presented.• Time and cost allocation may be presented for further work.