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And don't forget, you can always tell us what you think of our newsletter by emailing newsletter@SIMUL8.com. SIMUL8 in a Design for Six Sigma Project The case study below came from Michael Seifert. Mike received an iPod Nano for his kind contribution. We’d love to hear about how SIMUL8 has helped your business. If we use your story in our newsletter or on our website we’ll give you an iPod Nano. Please send your case studies to webteam@simul8.com. Capital One used SIMUL8 as part of a Six Sigma project to identify, validate and eventually mitigate the risks to customer satisfaction of creating a new style food service facility at their new campus in Virginia. Simulation was used to identify the leading indicators to the risk event, to give pre-warning of the occurrence as well as to perform what if tests to validate mitigation practices and contingency plans. Combining simulation with Six Sigma helped Capital One design a superior process in regards to predictability and reliability. The Challenge A rapidly growing workforce drove expansion into over 30 buildings spread across the city of Richmond Virginia. A result of this highly decentralized workforce was that training, communication, and day-to-day meetings became increasingly difficult and expensive to manage. The decision was made to consolidate employees into a new campus on the outskirts of Richmond. Professional consultants and contractors were hired to help design and eventually manage and run the campus and the “Lodge”, the high quality, efficient food facility. The Lodge was created to deliver a feel and appearance superior to any outside professional conference center in regards to meals. Although the consultants had extensive experience in similar operations, new aspects being employed in the Lodge design meant that the team could not fully assess risk events from past designs and processes. Six Sigma FMEA techniques were used to identify potential risks and simulation was them used to assess their significance, and finally develop mitigation techniques. The Simulation Model Discrete Event Simulation was chosen as the key question required assessment of process cycle time and queuing time. “ SIMUL8 was selected due to its ease of use and ability to deploy the model for future operational use at no cost ” , Michael Seifert, Group Manager, Capital One. In the first phase of the simulation process, the flow of the Lodge was defined and data estimates established by subject matter experts. Experts used patron’s typical behavior as a basis to create estimations of how the system would behave and choose triangular distributions to represent variability. Microsoft Excel spreadsheets where utilized as the data input mechanism. These sheets were then read into the simulation and the simulation runs/trials performed.
The Lodge wanted to target all patrons processed in 45 minutes inclusive of a 30 minute sitting period. An initial run of the simulation, under the current assumptions, showed that the Lodge would experience the identified risk event on a daily basis. From the simulation it became evident that the beverage station was a tim trap. It was designed as a fountain style self-serve setup. Changing to a fast pass beverage line, pre-placing water and tea on tables, and having sodas and other beverages available at the stations and in bins and refrigerators significantly reduced process time. During the simulation runs it became evident that batches “slammed” into the Lodge when large occupancy rooms released for the meal. This meant the porters could become overwhelmed. Simulation trials where completed at differing levels of catering based on group size. By monitoring occupancy and group sizes on a daily basis and when occupancy exceeds 40%, invoking in room catering for all groups of 50 or more resolved the issue. The Results During a pilot opening period, occupancies were monitored as well as queue times. As the simulation predicted, the beverage stations became the time traps for the process, using the contingency plans devised using the simulation customer satisfaction levels were maintained. For the first few months the simulation was run each day to predict possible issues for the next day. During the first 6 months of operation, the Lodge operated in a flawless manner not only allowing patrons the ability to pass through in 45 minutes but in many cases satisfying requests where groups restricted lunch periods to 30 minutes. To this day, mitigation procedures and contingency plans identified and tested in the simulation are used every day. The end result is a tool which allows a team to design a new process with a higher degree of predictability and reliability in delivering satisfaction to its customers. Upgrade to SIMUL8 2006 SIMUL8 2006 is available for download now. Some of the best new features include:
For full details on these and the other best features check out the Top 10 Reason to Upgrade. Career Opportunities at SIMUL8 On the strength of continued success and growth of SIMUL8 Corporation, combined with a number of exciting new product developments, we are looking to recruit the following positions. Business Modeling ConsultantWe are looking to recruit a Business Modeling Consultant to join our Service Team. With overall responsibility for successful delivery of consulting work, this will be a client-facing role; your brief will include:
For more details contact Laura Reid on +44 141 552 6888 or email laura.r@SIMUL8.com Software Developer We are seeking to add to our development team a very bright individual. You will need to show us you have significant skills in C related languages and a 2:1 degree or higher. You need to be technically sound, but you also must have the type of outlook that will make you good at understanding and working with clients. We use multiple languages here and need everyone to be willing to pick up (to at least understand) the other languages we use. User interface; speed of execution; appropriateness for the clients’ needs are all factors that drive the development work done at SIMUL8 Corporation. You can expect life here at SIMUL8 Corporation to be varied and interesting. Our projects and work tend to be very varied in length (ranging from a few hours, to several months) and for clients around the world. For more details contact Frances Sneddon on +44 141 552 6888 or email frances.s@SIMUL8.com Our website is always being updated with new support resources. Here are details on some of the downloads that were added this month. A new service pack for SIMUL8 2006 Build 1140 has been released. A new service pack for SIMUL8 2005 Build 1111 has been released. If you have any questions generated from, or comments about this
newsletter then email Newsletter@SIMUL8.com
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