MATH5007 2020 Semester 2: Assignment 1: Simulation
Name: ___________
Student ID: _____________
Question 1: General Simulation (16 Marks)
The part is a short general understanding and exploration question.
1. Provide in your own word a short explanation what simulation and especially discrete event-oriented simulation is (MAX 100 words) 8M
2. Provide a scenario in your daily life where you could image of gaining an advantage of simulation (or already do). Consider tasks (or less often happening projects you have done or might plan to do). I am interested in the scenario and the value of simulation in it; not that it has to be discrete event-oriented simulation. You do not have to describe the simulation itself (MAX 100 words) 8M
Question 2: Simulation Model (43 Marks)
You requested a simulation for your restaurant with respect to service quality. You received the given model, which reflects information collected over the past months. As the simulation model was done by an external company, which closed during the pandemic, you have no further documentation or experts who were involved in the implementation. The following information was included in some notes:
• Simulation should run with minutes as a time unit
• We consider only groups rather than individual guests. The group size is stored in a parameter in the agent group (agent.size = (int)triangular(1,2,7)) in “on at exit” in the source.
• Random seed number is 1
• The interarrival time of patients is exponential (12) per hour
• There are three resource pools for the GroupTables (2), Tables (parameter tableNr), and Waiter (2).
Note: In this model, we use the entities seize and release to handle the resources from the resource pools. In general, these entities operate the same way as the entity service where seize is requesting resources from the stated resource pool and release is placing the resource back in resource pool. Check the release and seize property for different options.
a) Inspect the model and explain what the simulation is doing. Focus just on the logic, not the statistics. Your description should include at least
a. the general process presented in the two parts between selector and sink (no details). 5M
b. the purpose of the selector. 3M
c. the purpose of the seize, delay, release in the lower branch, including a description of how the groups and waiter are conducting their tasks in the simulation. 6M
b) For the statistics, the time is tracked for 1) the group in the system similar to the example in class and 2) for each delay as part of “active” time spend in the restaurant (no waiting time for service). This is done using the following code: agent.timeActive = agent.timeActive + getReadyForService.getDelayTime(agent) in the corresponding delay entities. In the sink, the recorded times are used in the Histogram and Pie Chart. Explain in your words what the times/statistics represent. 5M
c) Run the model and report the statistics, i.e. the utility of the resource pools. Knowing the results, would you conduct any changes (resource pools)? Use the other statistics as well for your argumentation. If you would change something, explain the changes and the motivation for the changes. 6M
d) Small implementation: In the queue of seize1, use the timeout exit (with 5min) to connect to a new sink. This represents the max waiting time for a table before leaving the restaurant. 8M
e) How does the outcome change if you change the random seed value to 100? (use your new setting for the resource pools). 5M
f) Consider the model: Are you satisfied with the model to get a first impression of how the simulation is implemented or would you do some changes or additions. Be brief in you answer. 5M
The model to submit is the one you have after doing all the questions and adaptations of the resource pools. Include the .alp file in your submission. Note that it might be better to compress the folder and send the compressed file to me. Every question has to be addressed in a word document (you could insert your answer in this document). I am not expecting extensive answers, be precise and focus on the requested answer. Use also screenshots if helpful.
I do not mind study groups and discussing the questions. However, each answer has to be done individually, any form of misconduct will be reported.