MIME 4100 Final Exam: Prospectus Spring 2011

This will be a take-home exam. The exam problems will be posted on the course web page by 5 PMon Sunday, 5/1/2011. You should submit your solution by email it to me by 5:00 PM on Friday, 5/6/2011. This will be an open-book exam and you can work as long as you want on it until the time it is due. You cannot collaborate in this exam.

The material for the exam is as follows:

Introduction (Chapter 1)

General ideas about simulation

Good and bad things about simulation

Types of simulation: static vs. dynamic, deterministic vs. random

Software for simulation

History of simulation

Study homework 1

Review of Probability and Statistics (Appendix C)

Probability: basic ideas and terminology

What probability is and why we learn about it

Experiments, sample space, events, probability of an event, properties of probability

Conditional probability

Random variables

Definition of a random variable

Discrete random variables: Probability mass function, cumulative probability mass function, mean value, variance

Continuous random variables: Probability density function, cumulative probability distribution function

Joint probability distributions

Independent random variables, uncorrelated random variables, covariance, correlation

Statistics

Sample statistics: sample mean, variance, proportion

Unbiased, consistent and efficient estimators

Confidence intervals for mean value and probability

Hypothesis tests: null hypothesis, decision rule, p-value, errors in hypothesis testing, selecting a probability distribution for a given dataset, chi-square test

Study homework assignments 2-5

Fundamental Simulation Concepts (Chapter 2)

Example: Drilling Center

Analysis options: Guessing, queuing theory, mechanistic simulation

Components of a simulation model: entities, attributes, global variables, resources, queues, statistical accumulators, events, state variables

Event-driven simulation: Drill center example

Process-and event-driven simulation: Drill center example

Randomness in simulation

Comparing alternative system configurations

Example of single-server simulation using spreadsheets

Study homework 6

Computer simulation software ARENA (Chapter 3)

Example: Drill center

Structure and components of ARENA

Demonstration of ARENA on drill center example

Study homework 7

Modeling basic operations and inputs (Chapter 4)

Example: Electronic Assembly and Test System

Building and running a model

Debugging and verification

Developing inputs

Enhanced electronic assembly model

Study homework 8

Modeling detailed operations (Chapter 5)

CallCenter: System description

New modeling issues

Outline of modeling approach

Building and running the model and interpreting the results

Study homework 9