Educators

I started using FlexSim in my courses at the joint Florida A&M University-Florida State University College of Engineering in 2016. I use FlexSim as a simulation platform for course EGN 4460-5465 “Applied Simulation Modeling of Transportation Systems”. Moreover, in summer 2018, I hosted the “Young Scholars Program”, which is a six-week residential science and mathematics summer program for Florida’s high school students with a significant potential for future careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Throughout the “Young Scholars Program”, students were taught some basics of simulation and had a chance to work with FlexSim. So far, FlexSim was very efficient in achieving the educational goals, as it has a user-friendly interface, and students are able to quickly learn how to work with the software. Furthermore, FlexSim has a fairly detailed user manual, and students are generally able to find answers to basic software-related questions themselves. Using FlexSim, my students were able to work on real-life decision problems and develop efficient simulation-based management strategies. I strongly believe that FlexSim is a powerful simulation platform, which can be used not only for large-scale business projects, but also can assist with education and training of the next generation engineers.

FlexSim is one of the software packages that I used as a part of courses such as Simulation and Capstone in the Industrial Engineering Program at Quinnipiac University. It was particularly useful for implementing and displaying real life projects with the corresponding 3D view and statistical analysis. It is very much appreciated by high school students during the two worldwide online summer camps that I taught for the past two years during summers. Both high school and university students loved the capabilities of FlexSim and were able to work on projects using it. The most recent simulation summer camp included FlexSim Healthcare and we hope to include it in our curriculum this coming academic year. I particularly enjoyed FlexSim’s user friendly structure and how it can be easily manipulated to reflect reality unlike some of the other software packages that are popular but yet don’t show the same capabilities.

I used FlexSim for my clinical decision support and data management course. The majority of my students were nurses; they were asked to optimize an emergency department. FlexSim was very effective to teach fundamental concepts of decision making. The technical capacity of FlexSim simulation as well as the staff support I got from the FlexSim company allowed me to develop a very engaging exercise. Students enjoyed competing and modifying the initial model for the most efficient emergency department in groups. The complex features in the background makes the model very realistic. Yet, it was easy for student to comprehend important decision points and their consequences. I am impressed that the complexity of model allowed me to demonstrate some unintended consequences of some technology interventions that is also documented in the literature. The discussions based on the simulation model were very rich. The students’ self-reflections assured me that students had good learning experience and that learning objectives were achieved.

We’ve used FlexSim software for our capstone course in manufacturing facilities planning for well over a decade and we can’t say enough good things about both the product and the people who support it. My graduating seniors appreciate the fact that they are entering the working world with experience with state of the art software that provides a unique opportunity to integrate concepts from their entire academic career into personal portfolios that are second to none. From basic modeling through experimental designs to executive presentation, FlexSim covers all of our plant layout project needs and pushes us to stay on the cutting edge in our field.