What is Simulation?

Why would I simulate something?

Mostly, people use simulations to experiment with changes to their processes, without taking the risk of making the changes in real life. You make changes to the simulation and see where things could be improved. For instance you could look at:

• Where patients or tasks have to wait
• How long events take
• How equipment and staff are being utilized

You can try out lots of different ideas quickly - simulating days, weeks or years of your process in only seconds using the software.

What could I achieve?

Simulation gives you confidence in your evidence based decisions. Try out lots of 'what if' scenarios until you are sure that your decision is the right one. Simulation builds in real life randomness so you can be sure your model performs just like your actual process.

For example, patients never seem to arrive to their appointments on time, and it doesn't take the same time to turnover a room every time. By building this into the simulation, the model reflects reality and behaves in the same way as it would in real life.