A Beginners guide to Simulation Modeling with AnyLogic

Explore modeling and simulation with AnyLogic to solve real-world problems by building simplified models using a modeling language, testing scenarios, comparing outcomes, and optimizing solutions.

Explore how different kinds of models, such as organizational charts, model railroads, and wind tunnels, help analyze structure, roles, and aerodynamic designs.

Compare analytical modeling in Ms. Excel with simulation when many parameters and non-linear, time-dependent factors arise. See how sequencing future events informs optimal vehicle routing beyond spreadsheets.

Simulation modeling shows why analytical solutions fail for realistic bank processes, with independent arrivals and exponential service times, shared resources, and diverse employee skills.

Explore how a simulation model uses rules to move from the current state to the next, via differential equations and state/process/flow charts, producing KPIs and enabling dynamic analysis.

Explore simulation across abstraction levels, from physical models with distance and timing to aggregate models, including a hospital emergency department where space, traversal time, and absence of congestion matter.

Periodically reassess the abstraction level, starting high and adding detail as needed, with system dynamics for strategic modeling, discrete event modeling for process centric, and agent based modeling for variability.

Learn system dynamics by identifying variables and drawing causal loop diagrams to analyze balancing and reinforcing feedback, mapping advertising and word of mouth effects on sales and potential customers.

Model discrete events by treating a system as a flowchart of operations, with source blocks, sinks, and queues. Analyze resource utilization, waiting times, queue lengths, and system throughput.

Identify objects and define their behaviors to build agent-based models from the bottom up. Simulate epidemics or supply chains, where orders drive state changes across warehouses, production, and transport.

Learn Java basics for AnyLogic by understanding data types, case sensitivity, and variable naming; explore operators, control structures, loops, and distributions used in simulation modeling.

Build a bank service model in AnyLogic using discrete event modelling, featuring an ATM, tellers, queues, and 3D visualization of utilization and wait times.

Build an agent-based model of a solar panel production line in AnyLogic, detailing conveyor layout, production stations, resources, AGV transport, and batch unloading to simulate flow and finishing.

Explore additional resources for AnyLogic simulation modeling, including tutorials, the AnyLogic in three days book, the big book of simulation, models in the AnyLogic cloud, YouTube channels, and LinkedIn connections.