From the Editor...

By Mike Allen, MSUG Newsletter Editor, newsletter@m-sug.org

While preparing the last issue of this Newsletter, I entered into a discussion with Khaled Mabrouk over his excellent article on Selecting a Simulation Engineer. Khaled, as many of you will know, has been involved with MSUG for a number of years. But I was surprised to learn exactly how many years that was. In fact, Khaled mentioned to me that he discussed the need for a simulation user group based in Michigan with Dr. Hwa Sung Na at the Winter Simulation Conference in Washington DC back in December of 1992. This led to the creation of the Michigan Simulation User Group, and the first meeting was held in January 1993.

That's right. MSUG is 20 years old this year!

I was curious. Who sat on the original Steering Committee? Who do we have to thank for getting MSUG started? This prompted Khaled to reach out to the individuals concerned. There was a good deal of head-scratching and everyone I heard back from seemed to have a slightly different opinion—it was quite some time ago, after all. So far as Khaled's research is able to tell, the original committee, with their original employers, was:

Arun Agarwal—Chrysler
John Black—Cross
Duane Crandall—United Technologies
Betty Johnsonbaugh—Lamb
Roger Klungle—AAA
Claire Krupp (Billingham)—Strategic Analysis
Khaled Mabrouk—The Model Builders
Hwa Sung Na—Ford
Kathy Phipps—EDS
Lou Sahr—GM
Onur Ulgen—PMC

However, it's clear that a number of other individuals, including Frank Gudan and Jesse Stoner, were involved in those early days too. I apologize to anyone inadvertently left off the list, or whose role was recalled incorrectly.

I'm sure you'll join me in thanking all of them for their efforts. MSUG has certainly been a big influence on my professional career since arriving in Michigan 11 years ago. I'm grateful to Khaled for all his hard work, and to everyone else who participated in this journey through the past. You can read some recollections of MSUG's early days from Duane Crandall, Lou Sahr, Jesse Stoner and Khaled below.

(If you have any anecdotes or comments concerning MSUG's first 20 years that you'd like to share, feel free to email them to me for possible inclusion in the next Newsletter.)

Of course, time waits for no man, and we continue to prepare for this year's Annual Conference—our 19th (there was no conference that first year)—which is now just one month away. Please read updates from Randy Combs and Len Copus below.

We hope to see you there!

Incidentally, if you enjoyed this Newsletter, or think someone in your company might be interested in it, why not send them a copy.

In This Issue

Letter From the President

By Mark Jeffery, MSUG President, president@m-sug.org

Hello, everyone.

The end of summer is upon us—which means the MSUG Annual conference is just around the corner. And the economy is continuing to get better, and that’s a great thing for simulation.

It was just over 25 years ago that the Dow dropped its largest one-day percentage ever. And it was about 5 years later, in the midst of an economy struggling to recover, that the founders of MSUG had a vision to bring together simulators in Michigan. Do you remember the early 1990’s? It was a tough time, with unemployment peaking in 1992. And 1993 became the start of our beginning.

Five years ago we had our own “Great Recession”, and the economy is again struggling to recover—most recently with some limited success. In the midst of this recovery, wouldn’t it be a great time to honor our founders by personally contributing to the simulation community?

More specifically, I’m talking about joining the MSUG Steering Committee. This is the group that plans the dinner & talk events we have, and the Annual Conference. If you would like to address needs of the simulation community through an organized format, or want to give something back to the profession, or just want to venture out of your comfort zone in a way that will help others, consider carrying on the tradition started by our founders.

Serve the simulators of Michigan!

2013 Annual Conference, Sponsored by FlexSim Software Products, Inc.

By Randy Combs, MSUG Annual Conference Chair, conference.chair@m-sug.org

Our Annual Conference for 2013, on October 16 at the Michigan State University Management Education Center in Troy, Michigan is coming together very well. We have the great fortune of having FlexSim as our conference Sponsor again this year. Mr. Bill Nordgren will provide the audience with some insight of that software’s potential and capabilities.

Several software and service providers have reserved tables to display their wares and will be anxious to explain what their company can provide you.

We also have guest speakers that should provide interesting insight to simulation practitioners and those interested in throughput analysis tools. Dean Dougherty of General Motors Manufacturing Engineering will explain what he has learned and expects from throughput analysis as a customer of those tools and processes. Dean has been a paint shop process design engineer at GM for several years and has made use of throughput tools to develop new and improved paint systems for GM in that time. Another speaker we look forward to hearing from is Dr. Scott Bury from Dow Chemical. Dr. Bury will share his experience with us how to successfully create value through good simulation practice.

Both presentations should be insightful and valuable for us all.

Generally a popular agenda item is a panel discussion. This year we will have one. The topic of discussion will be Making Simulation Work in Your Organization. Hopefully, there will be some group participation on this important topic.

Please make your reservation early and save $10. At $20 per person, this is excellent value, and includes lunch and break time goodies! Prepay is an easy two-step process: send an email to Mark Steury at treasurer@m-sug.org with a request to register. An invoice will be sent to you for timely payment.

To qualify for the early registration rate of $20, your payment must be received by close of business on Thursday, October 10^th. DON'T FORGET TO REGISTER AND PREPAY EARLY! The price of admission goes up to $30 after this date!

Plan to attend and bring a friend. Bring the boss to see and hear what value simulation brings to the organization! Industrial engineering and manufacturing students couldn’t use their time more wisely than this day!

See you there!

(For updates on the Annual Conference, please check our web-site regularly.—Ed.)

Call for Conference Exhibitors

By Len Copus, MSUG Sponsor/Vendor Liaison, vendor.liaison@m-sug.org

This year's Annual Conference will be sponsored for the second year in a row by FlexSim Software Products, Inc. Thank you FlexSim!

The MSUG Steering Committee is seeking commitments from vendors wishing to exhibit at this year's conference. Exhibitors have two options: option 1 provides for space and table in the exhibit hall; option 2 provides for space and table in the exhibit hall and a 50-minute presentation time slot at the conference. Option 2 slots are limited to four and are awarded on a first-come-first-served basis (exhibitors will have a choice of the remaining time slots and presentation rooms).

To date, we have three exhibitors signed-up for the conference: thank you for your support Emulate3D, Simul8 and Production Modeling Corporation!

It is not too late to be an exhibitor or exhibitor-presenter at the 2013 conference!

For more information on being an exhibitor at the 2013 MSUG Annual Conference, please call me on (616) 913-5606.

We hope to see you at the conference!

West Michigan Meet-up

By Cindy Schiess, Steelcase, Inc., cindy.schiess@gmail.com

Hello Everyone,

The simulation users on the west side of Michigan have started quarterly meetings, under the name West Michigan Simulation User Group (WMSUG), in the Grand Rapids area to network and have occasional speakers/activities. We met initially 3 months ago and it is time again to gather for a few refreshments and good conversations. The group at the last event consisted of new users, experienced users, previous users, and some not yet users (but interested).

The details of the next gathering are:

Date:	Wednesday, September 25th, 2013
Location:	To be finalized next week (check the event page on the MSUG web-site for updates)
Time	5:00 - 7:00 pm

(We chose this date through a vote on Doodle, in which we had a total of 21 people indicate their preferred meeting dates. Thank you to all that participated. It is impossible to get a date that everyone can attend; however, this way we can accommodate the majority. If your plans change, join us—there is always room for more!)

Please join us to see a few old friends and/or meet a few new friends.

If you think you may join us and/or have any questions, please contact me at cindy.schiess@gmail.com

We look forward to seeing many of you there.

MSUG Founded to Drive Collaboration in Thinking

By Khaled Mabrouk, Sustainable Productivity Solutions, kmabrouk@reduceor.com

It is easy for me to remember when MSUG began. It was the end of my first year with The Model Builders, and I had a booth at the Winter Simulation Conference in DC. The whole family came along, and my wife, Gail, was pregnant with our last child (Andrew born in March). Gail was covering for me in the booth while I went to make a presentation. Coming back from the presentation, I ran across Hwa Sung Na (of Ford), and as we chatted, we learned that we both had been thinking about starting an MSUG-like organization.

Hwa Sung and I started reaching out to other simulationists from the Detroit area at the conference. Onur Ulgen (of PMC) offered to host our first meeting at his offices. At our first meeting in January was Onur, Hwa Sung, Frank Gudan, another GM person, and Roger Klungle. From there, we worked to grow the steering committee to 11 people. After about a year of steering committee meetings, we started having open meetings where many were invited, and we also applied for non-profit status. Unluckily, I can’t remember which year we first held a conference (we didn’t have any children born that year).

MSUG provided an excellent forum for me to grow my perspective on how to best apply simulation, and helped me make many professional friends that I value to this day. I am glad to have been a part of MSUG.

In the rest of this issue, various people, who were involved with the early years of MSUG, share some of their memorable MSUG experiences. Enjoy!

A Simulation Community

By Lou Sahr (retired Simulation Manager, General Motors Vehicle Assembly)

In 1992 I was president of the GM Manufacturing Systems Simulation committee and was invited to present to a group of mostly Ford simulation engineers. In this presentation, I challenged the proposition that the form of the service time distribution is always critical to the accuracy of the results. My presentation showed that jobs per hour and time in system simulation results were not significantly different for an empirical machine repair distribution versus a negative exponential distribution for some one and two machine scenarios. Well, these results provoked much heated debate from those who had invested in distribution modeling software from various sources. I explained that a simulation model need not include all the detail in a system but is influenced by the purpose, budget and time to collect data. I recall being defended by Hwa Sung Na (of Ford) who became one of the principal promoters of MSUG.

In time, the simulation community were no longer strangers nor industry rivals because the forum and personal contacts provided by MSUG promoted understanding and common directions in modeling and simulation software.

Simulation as a Decision Support Tool

By Duane Crandall (Senior Simulation Engineer, General Motors)

At the time that I joined MSUG I was working at United Technologies as an Industrial Engineer and was assigned the task of incorporating the use of simulation into the business process. Easier said than done when very few people in management knew much about how simulation is used, even less about how to incorporate it into a business process.

MSUG enabled me to learn from the perspective of other simulationists what worked, what did not, what to focus on, and what to leave out when choosing the level of detail for a model.
MSUG also put me in contact with experienced model builders who could educate all levels of leadership in what discrete simulation was, as well as how and when to use it. Most importantly for me was that MSUG gave me an opportunity to learn from people whom I considered to be at the top of their field. At the time I was a relatively young member of MSUG and was a former student of several of the original MSUG members. To witness my former instructors (Roger Klungle,  Dr. Onur Ulgen, Dr. Hwa-Sung Na) as well as other colleagues collaborating and creating a vision of why and how to increase the successful use of simulation as a decision support tool was truly awesome.

Looking back to the first MSUG meetings, I was very fortunate to observe some of the most visionary, capable and passionate pioneers in the world of discrete event simulation. Even today if you trace the roots of much of the simulation work that is being done on a global basis, you will find that it has roots and/or ties back to the Motor City and the MSUG group.

Happy Anniversary, MSUG.

Simulation Recollections

By Jesse Stoner (retired)

I was out of Michigan when Khaled Mabrouk started MSUG, so was not one of the original members. I soon moved back and became a member. Kal and I worked on factory simulations as early as ~1970. My simulation work began on GE's time share computers in 1958. What a thrill that was! I am now retired, living in Florida.

Back in my early days of simulation work, we had to actually create distributions for product arrival, time in utilities, time waiting, etc. All were done in BASIC for the first two years, then more sophisticate programs started to be made available. When the first "standard" pictorial simulations began to be made, in the 1970s, I was very concerned that (for example) arrival times or utilization times were standardized, with the simulationist not even knowing if they represented the actual factory. I still wonder...

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