Tag Archives: business analytics

To Expand or Not to Expand? Medical Clinic Simulation with Jennifer Cowden

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JCowden Profile Pic

Jennifer Cowden – Sr. Consultant

Less is More

I once worked with a programmer whose motto was “Pay me by the line of code,” and, not surprisingly, his code was often lengthy, inefficient, and hard to follow.  I’ve always preferred the opposite approach;  it is an interesting challenge to try to get the same functionality into as few lines of code (or alternately, as few process records) as possible.  Also, employing reusable blocks of code cuts down on the opportunities for mistakes and overall debugging time.   When I was an applications engineer at an automation company, I often had to get assembly lines modeled in a very short turn around.

Luckily, ProModel’s macro and subroutine modules made implementing reusable code very simple.  For the medical clinic model demonstrated in this post, we took flexibility a step further by using the “ALL” option in the process edit table.  Even though this model was built to simulate eleven different clinic layouts individually, and contains over 500 patient locations, this model contains a total of only seven process records.  Adding new clinic layouts now takes a fraction of the time and can be done with minimal code adjustments.  If you have a repetitive process, or one that needs to be flexible to add workstations quickly, this methodology could save you modeling time as well.

Check out Jennifer’s work on the Medical Clinic simulation model:

 

About Jennifer

Before joining ProModel in 2013, Jennifer spent 15 years in the automation industry working for a custom turnkey integrator. As an Applications Engineer she built simulation models (primarily using ProModel) to demonstrate throughput capacity of proposed equipment solutions for a variety of customers. Jennifer’s experience covers a wide range of industrial solutions – from power-and-free conveyor systems to overhead gantries and robotic storage and retrieval systems. She has also created applications in the pharmaceutical, medical device, automotive, and consumer appliance industries.

Jennifer has a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

ProModel is excited to release AST 6.9!

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AST (ARFORGEN Synchronization Toolset) is a custom predictive analytic software platform used by the US Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) to source and synchronize Army resources.

AST is now the authoritative system FORSCOM uses to conduct its unit planning and sourcing process in Army Force Generation (ARFORGEN). AST provides the Army with the means to view the predicted impact of today’s sourcing decisions on tomorrow’s utilization of Army personnel moving through ARFORGEN. AST “on screen” capabilities consolidates data from multiple sources, applies existing or “what if” business rules, predicts the outcome, and automatically depicts results thereby eliminating lengthy manual, linear, and presentation based methods previously employed. AST cuts development time for single Courses of Action from days to minutes, while enabling multiple Courses of Action within the same timeframe.

Some of the new features in AST 6.9 include: Improved Sourcing, Army Reserve, Army National Guard, and HQDA integration (tasks, etc.), additional Army Special Forces integration (risk), improved executive-level reporting (scorecard), improved Unit Cycle management, and dozens more enhancements.

ProModel also recently completed a “Financial Costing” proof of principal for FORSCOM that integrated data from AST and the U.S. Army Force Generation Costing Tool (ACT) for analysis in ProModel’s Enterprise Portfolio Simulator (EPS).

Read more about ProModel Custom Solutions and our work with the US Army:

http://www.promodel.com/custom-solutions.asp

http://www.promodel.com/industries/government-department-of-defense.asp#tabbed-nav=tab3

Portfolio Scheduler To Be Introduced at Microsoft Project Conference 2014

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Portfolio Scheduler is a new and exciting Enterprise Portfolio Simulator (EPS) feature that helps organizations make better decisions by facilitating rapid what-if scenario development.  ProModel is proud to introduce this new feature at Microsoft Project Conference 2014 #ProjConf.  After you simulate a Portfolio in EPS, you can simply visualize the portfolio in a single view. See the impact of projects schedules on your constrained resources.  More work than your resources can handle? Click and drag to change project schedules.

MS Conf 2014 Blog Post Ellen - pic

Please view this short video demonstrating Portfolio Scheduler

EPS Product Summary:

Click to access EPS%20Product%20explanation.pdf

Microsoft Project Conference 2014 (February 2-5):

http://www.msprojectconference.com/

ProModel on The Lean Nation

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ProModel’s Bruce Gladwin (V.P., Consulting) and Dave Tucker (Director, LSS Initiatives) join web and radio host Karl Wadensten on “The Lean Nation” to discuss the benefits of ProModel Simulation in lean initiatives.  Enjoy!

Probing LEAN Space with Dave Tucker

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Dave Tucker

Dave Tucker – Director, LSS Initiatives
Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt

Most companies have the same basic question they are trying to answer from a model project.  How can I make more stuff quicker?  Whether it is manufacturing, government, healthcare, or most any other industry, they all want to get more items through their processes faster and often they want to do it with fewer resources.  That’s the climate we are in now.  Everyone has to do more with less.

I have observed that many problems in Manufacturing can be directly attributed to having too much WIP.  Excess WIP inventory ties up money, creates the need for storage, increases cycle time, reduces throughput, and wastes Resources time.  But Managers want to keep everyone busy so they allow more work to be introduced into their systems instead of looking for Lean ways to better manage the “pull” of work.  Companies that learn to control the amount of WIP to meet their orders always do better financially then other companies that continually flood the workplace with inventory.

So I get excited when a model shows some new information that a company has never seen or understood before.  When they can see the process waste, understand how to remove it and implement the plan – that’s a great thing.

Check out Dave’s work on the Space Shuttle Program with United Space Alliance and NASA…. 

ABOUT DAVE

Dave Tucker is ProModel’s Director of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) Initiatives and also serves as a Senior Management Consultant and Project Manager.  He assists our clients primarily by providing simulation training, model consulting services, and LSS implementation advice.  Prior to joining ProModel, Dave was the Lead Lean Six Sigma (L6S) Master Black Belt at United Space Alliance (USA), located at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  USA is the prime contractor to NASA responsible for the Space Shuttle Program.

Dave has over 25 years’ experience leading teams, mentoring employees, solving problems, conducting training, and improving operations. He has led more than forty Kaizen Events, completed dozens of process simulation modeling projects, conducted hundreds of training sessions, facilitated over two hundred Belts & Team Leaders, and assisted with the implementation of numerous process improvements saving millions of dollars.

Dave has an extensive background in numerous process improvement tools utilized in Lean Six Sigma DMAIC & DMEDI approaches, as well as Kaizen team methods and process simulation modeling.  He has about 14 years’ experience using ProModel process simulation modeling tools for process improvement.  In addition, he is a sought after speaker and has made many well-received presentations at Process Improvement, Simulation, Industrial Engineering, and Aerospace Conferences.  He has a BSBA in Management from the University of Central Florida.  Dave is a Certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and a Certified Master Black Belt.

Happy Holidays!

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Keith Vadas

Keith Vadas – ProModel President & CEO

The ProModel family would like to wish everyone a very joyous holiday season and a prosperous 2014!  We thank you for all your support and business in 2013.  As always, our goal is to help you meet or exceed your performance goals.  We hope that our people and solutions were able to assist you in that endeavor this past year.

2013 was a banner year for ProModel as we celebrated 25 years of providing solutions that improve performance for companies and organizations all around the world.  We allowed ourselves a little time for celebration and reflection on this amazing milestone, but continued to keep up the pace with a host of new releases, updates, custom solutions and a brand new website.  Looking to the future, 2014 will be another exciting year as we plan to launch new products and improve our current solutions.

As for the next 25 years?  We’ll continue doing what we do best…developing innovative and collaborative predictive analytic solutions to help our customers make better decisions faster!

Thank you and I wish you and your families a happy holiday and joyful New Year.

Ready to Turn Pro?

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Get ready for quicker, easier model building with PCS Pro – a brand new level of Process Simulator combining its original ease of use with an enhanced feature set enabling faster model building, more complex processes and improved model maintainability.

Contact your ProModel Rep at 888.900.3090 or email us at pcspro@promodel.com for more information.

 

 

Nurturing an Empowered Decision Making Culture with Portfolio Management

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Orange Cathy

Cathy Liggett – Sales Director, PPM Solutions

I’ve had hundreds of conversations with Innovation Teams across the US, and this is the relationship that seems to be the least understood. Yes, we woman love to talk about relationships, and men seem to turn us off even before we get started, but this is one relationship we can’t afford to ignore.  More portfolio management initiatives fail because of this relationship, than for any other reason as far as I’m concerned. I’ve seen it, and watched others live through it―failed empowerment can be devastating.

In the book titled, The Three Keys to Empowerment, the authors state that “involving employees in an empowered culture allows them to use their knowledge, experience, and internal motivation to accomplish tasks for the organization.” Most leaders believe this. The difficulty everyone experiences is that talking about empowerment is lots easier than creating a culture where the empowered decision making processes can prosper. Yes, empowerment is meaningless, unless it’s used in context of decision making… Ops, another relationship, like I said, it’s hard for us gals.

Portfolio Management is a decision making tool that can be used up and down the Innovation Value Chain. It’s a tool that nurtures the culture where “the empowered decision making processes can prosper.” Recently, I was at the Gartner PPM Summit 2013, and most of the people I spoke with stated that they enjoyed the Summit, but the most common critique was “Yes, we know what needs to be done, but how?” Let me share with you how portfolio management nurtures the decision making process.

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There are five conditions required for portfolio management:

  1. There must be a list or set of alternatives to choose from.
  2. There must be a prioritized list of selection criteria.
  3. There must be specified metrics to measure the quantities of alternatives matching the selection criteria.
  4. There must be a set of predetermined portfolio thresholds that constrain the portfolio and cause limitations. In a constraint free environment, you’d select everything, and there would be no need for decisions.
  5. Insight into resource availability or needs. Unless you have the power to make your decisions real, your portfolio decisions are in vain.

Each of these conditions helps empower the decision maker, and nurtures the innovation culture.

Decisions about the market evidence portfolio and balancing the sources of evidence are portfolio management activities within the Innovation Value Chain.

  • Determining what problem statements produce a balanced set of business opportunities, with the greatest reward potential, to the market and to the stakeholders, is a portfolio decision.
  • Identifying a set of product features in a roadmap that stay within business constraints is a portfolio management problem.
  • Determining what requirements should be placed in a product launch, to provide the greatest value to the market, within current resource availability, is a portfolio problem.

These are all examples of how portfolio management empowers the innovation team to make command level decisions.

Shell game scam

With choice, comes the ability to experience the consequences of our choices. If after the innovation team makes a choice, some “other agency” nullifies their decisions, did the team really have a choice? I think not. But how, how can that “other agency” trust the innovation team to make the decisions they would?

In portfolio management, formally stated selection criteria and thresholds are used to represent that “other agency”, and provide a method of delegating values and motives to the decision makers. They form a set of guidelines that empower the decision makers to make decisions which represent the values and motives of that “other agency.” It’s a mechanism used to transfer authority. I should now identify that “other agency,” as the stakeholders of the innovation initiative.

If the stakeholders of the innovation initiative desire an empowered culture that uses their knowledge, experience, and internal motivation to accomplish new innovative solutions which satisfy market needs then, they need to provide the selection criteria and performance thresholds required in portfolio management decision making. Too many times this isn’t provided, and portfolio management practices are abandoned.

If the stakeholders have a tool like ProModel’s EPS, and use it to establish meaningful selection criteria, profitable performance thresholds, and efficient resource utilization plans, the empowerment of the Innovation Team is simple. Portfolio management can truly nurture the innovation culture, and become the powerful decision making tool it should be, from strategy development, opportunity selection, roadmapping, and all the way down to the day-to-day decision points throughout the Innovation Value Chain.

For more from Cathy:  thesalesgal.com

ProModel 25th Anniversary Message from Keith Vadas

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Keith Vadas

Keith Vadas – ProModel President & CEO

ProModel opened its doors in Orem Utah in 1988 thanks to Dr. Charles Harrell’s vision to provide an easy to use and affordable simulation toolset for non-programmers that could run on standard PC’s.  Fast forward 25 years and it’s remarkable to see how ProModel has grown from a small company based on a single innovative simulation software product to an organization with a global presence and diverse solutions servicing virtually every industry from Government and Manufacturing to Healthcare and Academia.

It’s truly a success story.  And it’s no secret that our success is all due to the talented professionals, both within our loyal customer base and the ProModel family, who are dedicated to the concept of improvement.  So                                               I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all for 25 great years!

Here at ProModel, we’re already looking into a future filled with great promise and opportunity for growth, and we continue to strive in developing innovative and collaborative solutions to help our customers make better decisions faster and create their own success story.

Visit our special 25th Anniversary Page and view a Timeline of ProModel History:

http://www.promodel.com/25/

Having the Right Tools

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Ellen Zohil – Technical Writer

Having the right tools and knowing where or how to get them, changes everything.  I remember the first year my husband and I moved into our new home.  The house came with an in-ground swimming pool which we were really excited about, however since we moved in September, we did not really get to enjoy it for the first year, only take care of it.  The first fall when we had to cover the pool with the very nice pool cover that also came with the house, my poor husband spent three hours attaching the spring loaded devices that connect to the concrete pool surround.  Three hours and he was exhausted!  Fortunately we did not think any more about it until that spring when it was time to re-open the pool.  We both were convinced that there had to be a better, easier way.  Fortunately my husband was working for a company that services pools and his pool servicing colleagues clued him into the special metal device that would have saved him incredible time and energy earlier that fall. Viola…from that point on, pool openings and closings have been a snap.

I learned a big lesson from that experience.  The right tools make every job so much easier.  Also, finding knowledgeable people who know what the right tools are and how to use them, makes a big difference too.  If I were venturing into the world of predictive analytics and looking for the right tools and the most experienced people, I would be fortunate enough to know that ProModel should be my source. ProModel was founded by someone who understood and developed simulation and analysis tools way before many other organizations were thinking about it. 25 years before!

ProModel’s people and its technology are focused on one area of expertise.  It takes a special talent to take the statistical understanding, combine it with the process knowledge and explain it to the business community.  In one article I read, these individuals are so hard to find they are even called unicorns.  So, If you are considering predictive analytics technology for your organization and you want the knowledge and expertise to help you select the right tools and teach you how to use them to your best advantage, ProModel is the right choice.  We have the right tools and the right people. We even have the unicorns!