When you come to us with a systems problem, the first thing we do is to quantify the potential return on your modeling investment. To do this, we provide you with a high-level systems analysis that relates the structure of your problem to your business objectives. This analysis provides you with a means to:
Clarify the opportunities, costs, benefits and risks associated with your problem
Surface hidden issues that may need to be considered
Identify any gaps in our understanding of your problem
If you then decide to embark on a modeling journey with us, we get down to the business of developing a customer requirements document (CRD) for your project. We use the CRD as a vehicle to communicate to you:
A definition of the problem
The objectives for the project
The minimum set of deliverables required to satisfy the objectives
The discrete phases required to meet the deliverables
An estimate of the time required for each phase
Our approach for meeting the deliverables in each phase
In order to maximize the potential value and minimize the risks of the time you spend working with us, we break your project into a number of self-contained phases with their own set of deliverables. This provides you with an opportunity to continuously re-evaluate the direction of the project and to make adjustments before advancing to the next phase.
We solve most of our customer problems using the Extend simulation package created by Imagine That!, Inc.. Extend provides us with a very effective means to graphically represent and quantitatively analyze your problem in a short amount of time. We create Extend models to help you visualize the hidden structures controlling the behaviors of your system. When necessary, we create customized input and output data management programs in Excel to help you quickly configure your Extend simulation models and interpret the model outputs.
While the number of phases varies from project to project, every project we do has four critically important phases:
Proof-of-concept
Validation
Analysis
Final report
We start every project by developing a proof-of-concept simulation model. This ensures the feasibility of our approach and provides you with a means to directly evaluate and make corrections to our approach.
Following a detailed review of the proof-of-concept model, we implement the features required in the simulation model to validate its behavior against the historical behavior of your system. Once the behavior of the simulation model matches historical behavior to within an agreed upon level, the project moves into the analysis phase.
In the analysis phase, proposed solutions to your problem are tested and the resulting behaviors are quantified and summarized. This phase often leads to an iterative process of making refinements to the simulation model to further understand observed behaviors and/or to enable the testing of previously unidentified alternatives.
The final phase consists of producing a report that summarizes the alternatives tested and observed results. For this phase, we use an agreed upon set of metrics to compare the performance of the system for each alternative tested. We deliver this report in a written, graphical and numerical form that provides you with the information required to meet the specified objectives of the project.
