For Immediate Release posted on April 20, 2015
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – April 20, 2015. How can I increase the production of coffee? Do we have enough burgers? Should an airport add a moving walkway?
Those aren’t questions you might be able to answer, but University of Pittsburgh graduate students produced simulation models in their 2015 Spring Introduction to Simulation Modeling and Applications class as their final projects… and they could!
Students on 5 teams from around the globe participated in a “board meeting” to present their findings on how simulation showed both cost-cutting measures and best operation methods for optimal profit. The teams selected industries that included: coffee production, drilling logistics, restaurant management, medical clinics and airport security. They were tasked with presenting an executive level summary that would describe and demonstrate the problem at hand, then show the ideal solution using simulation
“You can give lectures and demonstrations on how to use software, but giving the students to the power to choose 
their own world life problems and solve them using Simio simulation allows the students to gain real world experience. Allowing students to intellectually think through their problem and discover how simulation helps is invaluable.” said David Sturrock, Instructor of Simulation Modeling and Applications. “These projects and presentations give them resume building experience employers want from industrial engineering students.”
Simio is a fourth generation simulation platform that is designed for modelers, not programmers. It enables the modeler to focus on replicating the problem domain in a computer sandbox to study it across space and time. Whether you are a mining engineer estimating the number of trucks needed or a hospital administrator testing various staffing or layout changes, users can conduct experiments with their system under various operating conditions without costly real-world changes.
To view the students’ projects and models, visit here