May 2018 Student Simulation Competition - Contest Overview

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 14 teams enter directly (36 students) and 24 instructors with 196 teams (1012 students) for a total of 210 teams (1048 students).

We also had representation from the following 17 countries:

• Austria
• Canada
• Chile
• China
• Colombia
• El Salvador
• Germany
• Guatemala
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• Romania
• South Africa
• Spain
• Thailand
• Turkey
• United Arab Emirates
• USA

The 1048 students came from these 35 schools:

• Arturo Prat University
• Auburn University
• China University of Mining and Technology
• Chulongkorn University
• Goizueta Business School Emory University
• Instituto Superior Tecnico
• ITAM
• Khalifa University
• MCI Internationale Hochschule GmbH
• NJIT
• North Carolina State University
• Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg
• Penn State University, The Behrend College
• POLITEHNICA University of Bucharest
• Sabanci University
• Sichuan University
• Texas A&M University
• The University of Texas at Arlington
• Tshwane University of Technology
• TU Delft
• Universidad de El Salvador
• Universidad de Los Andes
• Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala
• Universidad Panamericana
• UNIVERSIDAD TECNOLÓGICA FIDEL VELÁZQUEZ
• Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
• Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
• University Laval
• University of British Columbia
• University of Houston
• University of Illinois at Chicago
• University of Virginia
• University of Washington
• Virginia Tech
• Western Michigan University

 

Summary of the Problem:

Sunrun is the largest dedicated residential solar company in the United States. They tailor a solar system to meet a homeowner’s needs and handle all aspects of installation. Sunrun operates in 21 states and continues to grow every year.

For this project 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.

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:

David Fickes Senior Market Intelligence Analyst at SunRun Inc (USA)	Dusan Sormaz Professor at Ohio University (USA)	Laura Silvoy Senior Associate at Array Advisors (USA)	Jennifer Kneller Senior Operations Research Analyst at WestJet (Canada)
Michael Zimmer Sr. Business Consultant at Vidant Health (USA)	Olivia Pewzer Advanced Simulation Specialist at HDR (USA)	George Miller Associate Simulation Consultant & Simio Partner at MOSIMTEC (USA)	Andrew Miller Industrial Engineer at BAE Systems, Inc (USA)

 

Simio LLC:

Dr. C. Dennis Pegden Founder and CEO	David Sturrock Senior Application Engineer	Anthony Innamorato Vice President of Customer Solutions	Devdatta Deo Applications Engineer