A QFD based evaluation framework for manufacturing-oriented simulation software

This paper presents a quantitative framework of analysis to evaluate and compare manufacturing-oriented simulation software tools based on the Quality Function Deployment (QFD). A limited group of academic researchers and industrial practitioners has been targeted and interviewed. The information and data collected has been employed to investigate the suitability of three products (Arena, Simple++ and Witness) for different software purposes and for users with different level of experience in simulation. To achieve the above mentioned objective, the simulation market has been divided into three segments (education/training, research and industry) and for each simulation package it has been assessed to what extent it could satisfy a given set of simulation user needs. The users have been further divided, according to their skill level in simulation projects, into three classes: novices, intermediates and experts. The first interesting outcome of the research was that no simulation package is completely convenient and appropriate for all manufacturing applications. More in detail, Witness appears to be more suitable for industrial users, whereas Arena is more geared towards research and education/training. In addition, the performance of simulation tools has been found to be dependent on the users' experience. It has been recognised that Arena provides better support to the user as one's simulation skill level increases, whereas Simple++ and Witness do not appear to change significantly their performances.