Work in progress - closing the loop between simulation and optimization in engineering management education

Abstract

This project involves asking three sets of engineering management students to develop group projects integrating simulation and optimization in different ways and assessing their absolute and relative educational effectiveness. These approaches are: a) Ask students to repeatedly simulate, using a conventional simulation tool, Witness© in this case, a system whose design criteria are modified according to a metaheuristic, until they arrive to an acceptable design b) Directly utilizing the optimization module of the conventional simulation tool involved c) To optimize systems with a higher “social” component, i.e. those heavily affected by customer behavior, to utilize multi-agent based simulation in closed loop with the optimization algorithm. It could be relevant for those interested in: a) teaching simulation and/or optimization b) moving away from the “silo” approach and towards integrated education c) the development and assessment of applied engineering capabilities.