Simulations can be categorized into three types: live, which can involve real people and equipment; virtual, which can involve real people working with simulated systems; and constructive, which can involve simulated people working with simulated equipment. (View Highlight)
The benefits of simulation include:
Resource conservation—Modeling a business process and running it as a simulation makes more sense than spending the time and money to build and implement a process only to find out that it is flawed. Finding and fixing problems early during a simulation can save you time and money because it has no impact on work currently being done in your organization.
Visual output—Business process models give you an easy-to-read visual overview of processes and model designs. Running simulations based on your BPMN models lets you easily see the links among various tasks and identify where tasks may need to be added to, or removed from, the process flow. Visual outputs from simulations make it easier for you to communicate past and future changes in the process to managers and stakeholders.
Testing process behavior—Testing business process behavior before it is built gives you a good indication of how it will work in the real world.
Problem solving—Analysis of the behavior lets you see what works and what doesn’t work. It’s easier and cheaper to fix simulated problems than it is to fix real world problems.
Education and training—Simulations are a good, cost-effective way to give new employees hands-on practice and experience with processes and systems without having an impact on actual, real-time workflows.
Accurate results—The results you get from a simulation are usually accurate and can help you know what to expect when you transition the process from the virtual world into the real world. (View Highlight)
In a constructive simulation, you have simulated people operating simulated systems. Real people input data for the simulation but they do not determine the outcome (View Highlight)
