May 2017 Student Simulation Contest Overview

1st
The Golden Twins
Model
Team Photo
2nd
Seneka
Model
Team Photo
3rd
The Markovits
Linkers
SmartDrill

Overview of Contest:

There are two ways to enter the Simio Student Case Competition. You can either enter directly or through class participation. This contest, we had 31 teams enter directly (77 students) and 22 instructors with 189 teams (547 students) for a total of 220 teams (624 students).

We also had representation from the following 11 countries:

  • Columbia
  • El Salvador
  • Germany
  • Guatemala
  • India
  • Mexico
  • Netherlands
  • Portugal
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Spain
  • USA

 

The 624 students came from these 39 schools:

  • Binghamton University
  • China University of Mining and Technology
  • City University of New York
  • College of Engineering Trivandrum
  • Instituto Superior Tecnico
  • Instituto Tecnologico de Morelia
  • Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores
  • ITAM
  • Jeddah University
  • Kansas State University
  • Maryville College
  • North Carolina State University
  • Ohio University
  • Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg
  • Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
  • Rochester Institute of Technology
  • San Jose State University
  • Sichuan University
  • Taylor University
  • Texas A&M University
  • Texas State University
  • TU Delft: Delft University of Technology
  • Universidad Arturo Prat
  • Universidad de Concepcion
  • Universidad de El Salvador
  • Universidad de Los Andes
  • Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala
  • Universidad Panamericana
  • Universidad Tecnológica Fidel Velazquez
  • Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
  • Université Laval
  • University of Applied Sciences Aschaffenburg
  • University of Houston
  • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • University of Michigan Dearborn
  • University of Pittsburgh
  • University of South Alabama
  • University of Washington
  • Western Michigan Universityy

Summary of the Problem:

An American group of pulp and paper manufacturers is increasingly aware of inefficiencies in obtaining wood as a raw material. Because they operate independently, very often logging trucks drive past one mill to deliver to a competitor mill, adding potentially avoidable transportation cost into the system. They are aware of a European consortium that controls wood deliveries to minimize logistics cost.

They want to evaluate the creation of a new consortium to manage wood deliveries to their mills.  The objective would be to minimize logistics cost.  There are 3 mills in an area, each consuming 4-6k tons of wood per day, running continuously.  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.

The consortium would like a representation of the present system as well as the proposed system so they can evaluate the potential required investment, best operational parameters, and expected savings.

Read the full problem!

Judging Criteria:

The judging was based on:

  • Quality/clarity of the presentation
  • Analysis/use of input data
  • Modeling detail/approach
  • Model internal documentation
  • Verification and Validation
  • Quality of animation
  • Experimentation/exploration of alternatives
  • Analysis of results
  • Quality of the recommendations
  • Overall project quality and Executive Summary

For more detail, see the Contest Judging Criteria.

Judging Panel:

Academic and Commercial:

Melody Ablola Idalia Flores De La Mota Jacob Ingalls Mustafa GÖÇKEN
Melody Ablola
Associate | Logistics Consultant at ARUP (USA)
Idalia Flores De La Mota
Head of Operations Research Department at National University of Mexico (Mexico)
Jacob Ingalls
Industrial Engineer at FedEx Ground (USA)
Mustafa GÖÇKEN
Adana Science and Technology University (Turkey)
       
Dennis Siedlak Jirapa Kevin Sheehy Mohd Helmy Abd Wahab
Dennis Siedlak
Space Systems Engineer in the Modeling and Simulation Department at The Aerospace Corporation (USA)
Jirapa "Bow" Kliewer
Transportation Project Intern at City of Pittsburgh
Kevin Sheehy
Process Improvement and Simulation Consultant at AxSim Solutions (United Kingdom)
Mohd Helmy Abd Wahab
Senior Lecturer at Universiti Tun Hussein Onn (Malaysia)
       
Martha A. Centeno Raul Zuniga    
Martha A. Centeno
Professor at University of Turabo (Puerto Rico)
Raul Zuniga
PHd at Universidad Arturo Prat (Chile)
   

Simio LLC:

Dennis Pegden Christine Watson Devdatta
Dr. C. Dennis Pegden
Founder and CEO
Christine Watson
Senior Application Engineer
Devdatta Deo
Application Engineer

May 2017 Contest Winners

First Place

The Golden Twins
Ohio University

Team Introduction Project Video

more details >

Second Place

Seneka
Universidad de los Andes Colombia

Team Introduction Project Video

more details >

Third Place

The Markovits
Universidad Panamericana

Team Introduction Project Video

more details >

Top 17 & Honorable Mentions

The top 17 teams out of 220

more details >

Contest Overview

Contest Overview, Summary of Problem, Judging Criteria and Judges

more details >