Darrell W. Starks

A tutorial on TESS: the extended simulation support system

This paper presents a discussion of TESS The Extended Simulation Support System. TESS is a software product which creates an environment for conducting all tasks related to a successful simulation study in an integrated and consistent fashion. It is recognized that there are different types of users for such a support system, from model builders and input data collectors, to model experimenters or users, to output analyzers and decision makers. This paper will provide an example demonstrating the capabilities of TESS to support simulation projects.

Tutorial: simulation in the hospitality industry

This tutorial article addresses the use of simulation in the hospitality industry, in particular the use of simulation in the fast food restaurant industry. Although the application of simulation to any system follows the same basic series of steps in an iterative fashion, there are unique aspects of the fast food restaurant industry that must be addressed when applying simulation to that industrys needs. In particular in the data collection, model building and in the validation steps there seem to be somewhat unique problems due to the wide variability of the same restaurant in different locations. Another aspect that is addressed is the use of simulation in one of two ways, either as a planning tool at a central location in a particular company versus a field based tool. All in all simulation is just coming into widespread use in this industry and will be a valuable analysis tool for an industry with wide variability among its various components.

ACE: a decision tool for restaurant managers

A simulation based decision support tool called ACE has been developed for Pepsico Restaurants International (PRI) allowing restaurant managers to quickly and accurately analyze a given restaurant, ACE gives the restaurant manager a tool to evaluate the customer point of contact within a given restaurant. This simulation based tool uses Arena for the model and Lotus 123 for the interface. PRI has installed this tool in two of the six international regions and will by early 1997 have it in all of the international regions.

A decision support tool for Dofasco's primary steelmaking operations

Dofasco Inc. needed a dynamic decision support tool in order to evaluate its primary steelmaking operations. Before working with Rockwell Automation, Dofasco used spreadsheet models and smaller simulations to evaluate capital expenditures at its steel mill. It was determined that modeling all of Dofascos primary steel operations using Rockwell Softwares Arenareg coupled with an Excel user interface would allow Dofasco to perform various scenarios in a timely fashion. Through the use of modeling and simulation Dofasco was able to identify bottlenecks in its system, improve throughput by more efficient use of system resources, and understand the impact of proposed system changes before investing additional capital