Simulation Study Project Tasks

1. Problem Statement:
   
   • "Storyboard" description of system
   • Objective(s) of study: what are the questions? (An example: "How long does someone have to wait in line?")

2. Project Plan:
   Describe the responsibilities of each member of your team. For example: Data Collection (below); who is writing what part(s) of the report; is it a group effort to determine the pdfs/cdfs?; if not, who is checking to make sure they are "reasonable" before simulating the system?

3. Model Conceptualization:
   Abstract the essential features of the system in order to characterize it. Give the formal system characterization. Define:
   • Entities
   • Attribute (attributes) of each entity.
   • What constitutes the state of the conceptualized system.
   • Events

4. Data Collection:
   The objective(s) of the study indicate the data to be collected. Example: objective: how does the length of lines change as the number of tellers change? (That's an overly ambitious study for this class.) data needed: distributions of customer arrival time and teller service time.
   
   • What data need to be collected?
   • How will this be achieved?
   • How have you organized your team for data collection?
   • How will you keep track of different data items collected for each customer?

5. Model translation:
   Describe your simulation api and your particular simulation application. This means EXTENSIVE javadoc - as you've come to expect from Sun.

6. Model verification:
   Is the program performing correctly? Specify all the tests that were performed.

7. Model validation:
   Is the model an accurate representation of the system? If it is, why is it? If not then calibrate the model so that it is. (This might involve further debugging; trying different cdfs, etc.) Document Document Document all calibration efforts. How successful was each effort? Which did you end up using?

8. Experimental design:
   How many runs do you intend to run? What is/are the length/s of the run/s? Do they vary? What is your overall strategy? How do you think these experiments help you to satisfy the objective of your study?

9. Data analysis:
   What is/are the answer/s to your question/s? What is the degree of certainty? If you couldn't get an answer, why not?

10. Summary:
    Trials and tribulations ... What would you have done differently, if anything? What unexpected problems did you encounter? What data do you wish you had collected?

11. Documentation and reporting:
    A web page to die for that includes all of the above. It should be an incremental document.

12. Presentation:
    at the end of the semester

13. Critique:
    of your project and all the other projects. What grade do you give your team? What grade do you give the other teams?