How can you teach simulation and modeling skills to manufacturing operations staff?

Understanding the areas where operators are struggling and providing solutions through simulation will help is creating the enthusiasm in the operators towards learning the modern skills. Creating training cases for faulty situations, simple user interface so that they can navigate through the software, having a good dashboard to monitor , providing solutions to common day issues all these can be a key to teach.

There are simulation methods, e.g. material flow simulation, which require simultaneous knowledge of several specialist areas. In this case, it is worth first checking whether it is financially worthwhile for the company to teach the employees to use a specific modeling method, or whether external modeling work is needed. It can be said that the workload of process engineers does not usually allow for a long learning curve. And because of this, the engineer will not have time for modeling either. If it is financially worth it, it makes sense to purposefully build your own simulation team, a more serious educational process.

To teach simulation and modeling skills to manufacturing operations staff, it's best to follow these steps: 1. Assess the current skill level 2. Provide theoretical foundation: Start with an overview of simulation and modeling concepts, explaining their importance in manufacturing operations. 3. Use practical examples 4. Hands-on training: Offer hands-on training sessions using simulation software or tools. 5. Collaborative projects: Engage the staff in collaborative projects where they can apply their simulation and modeling skills. 6. Continuous learning: Encourage ongoing learning and provide resources like online courses, webinars, and workshops. Keep them updated on the latest advancements in simulation and modeling techniques.

It is very important to develop a modeling approach for the student at the beginning of education. What education is useless without: multiple abilities. For example, in the case of material flow simulation, you must already know the basics of production/logistics processes, but you must also be open to performing programming tasks. If this is given, then systematic learning of the modeling framework and the completion of various smaller tasks can follow. The learning process is really effective when the teacher and the student create a model that fits the professional profile of the student in a workshop-like way, and they model and then analyze the processes together.

Practice, practice, practice. This is the most effective method of learning modeling. But it is very important to have processes that support learning. Guided education is usually helped by small examples, from which you can learn a lot. Nowadays, we can get a surprising amount of help from online professional communities on social platforms. Some simulation software have built-in help that shows the typical situations that arise and their solutions at the level of a course material. Browsing these helps can give a serious boost to the student who is just learning the software.

Ethics: Oops, there's a simulation project! Don't knock it if we can't do it. If we don't have enough expertise, time, equipment, or people, why would we take on the job? Because we don't have enough money either. Better not do that. Don't knock it if the customer doesn't need it. If the task can be completed using other, cheaper and faster methods, then we must tell him this. Don't knock it if it can't be done due to the circumstances. For example, the fulfillment would require a set of data that the customer does not have and will not have, nor can it be produced. Customers value honesty and fairness, which usually pays off later.