Thesis Abstract and Dissertation Abstracts

In today’s turbulent economy and brutal global markets, manufacturing companies are doing all they can to maintain their competitive edge. Modelling and simulation are emerging as key technologies to support manufacturing in the 21st century as simulation is a powerful tool for allowing designers to imagine new systems and enabling them to quantify and observe its behaviour. According to Hammer and Champy (1993), any change brings substantial risk as it is usually difficult to predict the outcome of changes before they are put into practice, and it is evident that the failure rates of Business Process Reengineering projects is over 50%. Successful implementation of BPR is not possible without the use of Business Process Modelling (BPM) and that too through simulation as it seems reasonable to claim that simulation modelling could offer a great potential in modelling and analyzing business processes, and therefore reduce the risk associated with business process change. 

So, this study was envisaged with an aim to provide industry with an Open Source Software that allows making selection of simulation software on the basis of statistical/data mining techniques.

 

1.      This study was carried out objectively to study features of simulation software used by automobile manufacturers in North India. The survey was conducted in 18 automobile companies in North India which are the members of Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM). SIAM is the apex industry body representing leading vehicle manufacturers in India. There were 11 simulation software used by automobile manufacturers in North India. These are NX-IDEAS, ProcessModel, HyperMesh, Nastran, ProModel, AutoMod, Star-CD, Moldex 3D, Tecnomatix, CATIA V4 and ExtendSim.

2.      An intensive literature survey based on (i) Essays extolling the virtue of the Business Process Simulation, (ii) Descriptive work concerning the extent of simulation tools available in the market that organizations can adopt, and (iii) Evaluation and Selection of simulation tools was carried out.

3.      This study provides a list of more than 207 evaluation criteria. These criteria were derived mainly from practical experience of automobile industry users, from simulation software developers and some of them were identified during analysis of the literature.  Four main groups of criteria were defined. Features within each group are further classified into subcategories, according to their character. The main categories are:

a.       Hardware and Software Considerations: general information, coding aspects, software compatibility, user support, financial and technical features;

b.      Modelling Capabilities: general features, modelling assistance;

c.       Simulation Capabilities: visual aspects, efficiency, testability, experimentation facilities, statistical facilities; and

d.      Input/Output issues: input and output capabilities, analysis capabilities.

4.      Online/ in person responses were obtained through questionnaire specially designed for the purpose. This questionnaire was designed by taking in view the related studies available and viewpoints of analysts.  

5.      A criterion was marked down to make comparative evaluation of these simulation software.

6.      The study verifies empirically the state of simulation tools used currently in Indian Automobile Industry in comparison to the developed framework on the basis of various statistical/ data mining methods. As one of the objectives of the study was to compare the average response of respondents across the eleven simulation software, for this purpose Kruskal–Wallis test and Hlupic Methodology was used. Principal Component Analysis was also used to find the most important factors for simulation software selection.

7.      An open source software “Smart Sim Selector” was developed that helps users in customized selection of simulation software based on their specific requirements.The complete source code, setup and user manual of Smart Sim Selector is available at www.simvehic.com. The software is registered in Indian Copyright Office, New Delhi (Registration No. SW 4432/2010) and U.S. Copyright Office (Regisration No. TXu 1-630-820). 

8.      Finally some guidelines have been suggested in the form of 6-Steps for simulation software selection process. 

 

As per the postulated objectives of this research, the thesis is divided into six chapters.

 

The first chapter gives an introduction to basic concept of simulation and its various application areas. Subsequently, the business process simulation and its benefits have been discussed. Then it throws light on the applications of simulation in automobile industry which is one of the largest manufacturing industries today. The chapter concluded with the basic issue of this research i.e. the evaluation and selection of simulation software.

 

The second chapter deals with the background research material used as a basis for the research presented in this thesis. The three main components in the study are - business process simulation, business process simulation tools and the evaluation & selection of business process simulation tools, thus the literature review has been divided into three sub-sections. The gaps in previous studies were identified to uphold the need of this research. This chapter also deals with the scope, objectives, the methodology followed and limitations of the research.

 

The third chapter establishes a comprehensive simulation software evaluation framework comprising of 207 criteria. The evaluation criteria are grouped according to their nature into four main groups consisting of 14 subgroups of criteria.  

 

The fourth chapter compares the 11 simulation softwares used by Indian automobile industry. These simulation software are compared against the developed framework by applying Kruskal-Wallis Test and Hlupic Methodology. Also the Principal Component Analysis has been applied to find the most important factors. 

 

The fifth chapter demonstrates the open source software i.e. Smart Sim Selector developed for the purpose of providing support for users when selecting simulation software. Smart Sim Selector uses three different techniques for selecting the best suitable software for the user i.e. Weighted Score Method, Analytic Hierarchy Process and TOPSIS.

 

The sixth and final chapter summarizes important findings. The guidelines for simulation software selection are given followed by the directions for future studies.

 

It is a firm belief that this study is definitely going to be of assistance to simulation software developers to improve upon their products and help individual companies to select simulation software as per their specific requirements.