Mat 540 Quantative Methods

Creating a simulation involves a series of steps. Each step is important for obtaining a certain set of information. There are roughly 16 columns, which need to be created in order to understand what the simulation is expressing and in order to make a well thought out decision based on the data that you have. We create simulations because problems are too complex and are to long to solve by hand.

First off, opening an excel spreadsheet is important and being sure you set it up the proper way. The first step I did was created my p(x), Cumulative, and repair time category. From there, we created our Breakdown, which is just standard numbers. Then we added the random numbers selection and we did this by using the formula =RAND(). This allowed for our random numbers to take place. We dragged the numbers down and then froze the columns so that we kept the same random numbers throughout the process.

We wanted to had the time between breakdowns and did so with the formula =4*SQRT(row#). This filled in that information for us and gave us the amount of time between breakdowns. From there we looked at days. We took =7*(Row#) and this gave us the days that go along with the random numbers and time breakdown.

We now have our breakdown, Random Numbers, time and days.But having days with decimals was not the best option so we took the formula =Round(Row,0) and this rounded our days for us. Now, we need to create a random number two selection and we do this by =RAND(). We once again freeze this column of numbers so they do not vary. We want to find the repair time so we have to go back to the column we created at the start of our simulation sheet. We do this by VLookup (RN2),Repairtime,2. We use two since it is the second column.

Once we have this data colleceted, we have to look at the time in cycle that it takes, we figure this out by adding our whole days plus our repair time. Once we have those numbers we look at running time. Running time is...