Process Simulation

Manufacturing cars, or processing calls in a call centre. Organising product distribution from a warehouse, or testing patients in a radiology department of a hospital. While these may all seem unrelated, they all in fact have a common thread running through them. That thread is that they are governed by a process.

The processes have all have three broad components: (i) inputs, (ii) processes, (iii) outputs. While each of the three differs for each process, on the whole they are similar. All of this means that they can be broken down and analysed in a similar way, mapping them out and applying logic to them.

But what happens if there are a lot of variable inputs? The first car running down a manufacturing line may be a basic model, while the next one might have every conceivable add-on. One patient may require a standard x-ray, while the next may require more in-depth attention and take much longer.  So if we are looking at a process, we must take into account all these variables, and how they impact upon each other. An Excel spread sheet can be great for giving top line analysis (I use Excel extensively), but when you are looking at many interdependent factors, the simplicity of Excel doesn’t always cut it. Enter process simulation.

By using dedicated process simulation software, we can model any process in a virtual environment. This kind of process simulation software allows us to build a model that is close to the real process in its behaviour. When the model is built we analyse its behaviour and performance, assessing where its weaknesses are, and how we may be able to correct them. We can run any imaginable “what-if” scenario in our model, without risking experimenting with our real world process. This removes a lot of risk associated with change. Now we can examine what happens if 50% of our cars on the line are base models and 50% high spec. And what happens if we switch to batch manufacturing and build 100 base models, then 100 high spec. We can see what is the knock on effect of our more complicated x-ray in the radiology department, and whether there would be benefit to carrying out all high complexity scans first, then all low complexity ones.

Using process simulation, we can understand the most complex of processes, and discover how to make them the most efficient of processes.
At Process Improvement Ireland, we use Flexsim as our process simulation tool. Flexsim is an extremely powerful tool that allows for large scale customization and for modeling, analyzing, visualizing, and optimizing any imaginable process.

For more information on how Process Simulation may be able to benefit you, please feel free to contact us for more information, or a free consultation. You can also view more information on our 3D process modelling, industrial engineering and lean engineering services to help you understand how process simulation fits into all this.