These problems are free for instructors to use in their classes and for anyone looking to enhance their skills. If you are a instructor not teaching Simio this semester or a professional, volunteer to be a judge of our next competition! If you are interested in submitting a problem for a future competition, let us know!
This problem involves The Simio BBQ Smoke Pit is an up-and-coming local restaurant. It features a variety of BBQ smoked meats and classic sides. This makeshift cookout is nestled in an older, renovated building in a bustling downtown block. Due to size constraints, this is a carry-out only establishment. However, as Simio BBQ Smoke Pit continues to grow in popularity, customers are facing longer wait times due to product outages and a constrained labor force. To keep up with demand, the restaurant needs help determining what new policies to enact to resolve their service bottlenecks..
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This problem involves a warehouse that stores footwear and apparel items which are shipped as outgoing orders to customers. These orders range from “singles” which are single consumer purchases to multi-item orders. MDC is noticing an increase in orders as well as a diversification of order types. Warehouse planners and mangers are looking to improve picking operation strategy to meet their customer delivery goals. The planners and managers must determine how to balance the workload across the warehouse system, which includes taking into consideration the teams that work downstream of picking. The scope of this project starts with picking units from shelved storage and ends with packing and shipping the orders
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This problem involves a regional airport that is seeing an increase in passengers as the surrounding communities are developing and experiencing economic growth. However, this volume increase is causing the airport to be frequently plagued by congestion that could hinder the economic growth in the area. For this reason, the airport is evaluating improvement projects to help reduce the congestion and enhance passenger experience.
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This problem involves a supermaket company that has a distribution center that utilizes cutting-edge technology and advanced analytics to minimize cost. Real-time information actively guides decision making and verification, optimization, and automation are a part of daily operation. Due to the complexity of the operation, it is difficult to predict how additional investment will function after implementation. Specifically, how orders should be prioritized and dispatched to minimize labor costs? .
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This problem involves a corn seed manufacturing company. Corn seed manufacturing consists of several processing steps from the time it is harvested in the field and delivered by the trucks to the manufacturing facility through customer delivery. Within the manufacturing facility, we will specifically look at the process steps from the bulk storage to the packaging lines ignoring some of the intermediate steps for the sake of simplicity.
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This problem students are asked to consider the complexities of the "last mile" of solar panel installation. This process covers the actual movement of equipment, supplies and crews to a home (job site) and installing solar panels on the roof. Right now, there is a proposal to change the current standard to a new delivery process that can better handle the unexpected events that can delay or lengthen the installation. Senior management has requested an evaluation of the current process, comparison of the two scenarios, and recommendations for improving the installation process. .
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This problem involves a group of pulp and paper manufactures that want to evaluate the creation of a new consortium to manage wood deliveries to their mills. The objective would be to minimize logistics cost. Each mill involved has independent demand and maximum inventory, and some have offsite “drop yards” for additional inventory. Wood is cut from in the region by small owner-operator logging companies. Each independent logging operation has its own cutting and delivery capacity that varies seasonally.
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An aerospace manufacturer evaluating planned changes to their final assembly systems is the main focus of this problem. Their process line has multiple work stations, each with a statement of work consisting of 10 to 20 aggregated tasks. Each task has unique requirements for labor, tools and material handling. The system is schedule driven, so any work not completed at the time the line pulses will be “traveled” downstream. Production policies regarding this traveled work is one of the items to be evaluated during this project.
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This problem models an urgent care center that wants to determine the best general layout, staffing, room allocation, and other operating methodologies. The center would also like to evaluate how increasing patient incentives to pre-schedule for exams and other minor sicknesses could potentially reduce the staffing required. The same model will optimize centers in many cities, so the simulation model must be data driven.
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This problem deals with a logistics company that charters a number of offshore vessels to move material to and from various offshore drilling locations. The "as is" system dedicates a small number of vessels to service a set of offshore locations. Since the cost of an offshore rig going idle due to a lack of material is extremely high, they tends to procure vessels to meet maximum expectations to maximize drilling efficiency. Data indicates that there is much standby time at both ports and the offshore locations. They would like to improve vessel scheduling and potentially reduce the size of the offshore vessel fleet through operational improvements.
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This problems evaluates a new airport service combining free parking with a car rental service. You need to evaluate the logistics and economics of the idea to ensure that it is a good investment.