Here are three ways process optimization helps businesses thrive in challenging times, and how it can lower your costs and improve the efficiency of your organization.
What is business process optimization, and how does it work?
Business process optimization is a powerful method for improving a company through automatic simulation optimization. It means identifying and analyzing business processes, finding areas to improve, and making changes that streamline the work and remove waste. Optimization does not stop at improvement, though. It pushes on until the process reaches resonance.
Process resonance
Resonance is a phenomenon where a system begins to vibrate with larger amplitudes at its resonant frequency. It shows up in mechanical, electrical, and acoustical systems alike. Picture pushing a child on a swing. Push at the right frequency and the swing climbs higher and higher, because your push frequency matches the swing’s natural frequency and resonance takes over.
Process resonance is the point where every element of a system synchronizes to produce the highest output for the least effort. Unfortunately, it is brutal to find by hand, because many systems hold more than 10,000 possible solutions.
With optimization, the computer experiments on its own to find the situations where process resonance occurs. These experiments happen rapidly, and the computer recognizes when an experiment is not viable, discarding thousands of candidates immediately. Options that show promise become a springboard for further experimentation. It works a little like natural selection: the weak ones die off, and the strong ones carry on. The hunt for the best solution often arrives at process resonance, that little extra that is pure profit, the nudge that makes good companies great.
Let ProcessModel work while you sleep
A modern computer can run an enormous number of calculations per second, yet we use only a fraction of that power. The computer stops when we do, when we head home, break for lunch, or switch to another project. With ProcessModel, once you set a target for the optimization, it keeps searching even when you step away. You can go home for the night or out on a date, and ProcessModel keeps hunting for process resonance with no further input from you. You get a good night’s rest, and the answer is waiting in the morning.
Uncover solutions you don’t have time to try or might overlook
How many experiments do you actually have time to run? And if you cannot run them all, how do you decide which to eliminate? Some people suggest a design of experiments. That is a great idea in the right setting, but it does not fit the problems you meet in simulation. Design of experiments works when you can set binary variables such as hot or cold, not the question of which exact temperature to use. Simulation adjustments usually fall into that second category, where a variable moves across a range of possibilities.
To count the possible solutions, you multiply the range of the first variable by the range of the second, the third, and so on. The variable is the range of motion for the parameter you want to adjust. Variable one might be the number of people in an area, say 15 to 20. Adjustments could include any of the following:
- Number of people
- Pieces of equipment
- Type of equipment
- Process changes
- Routing changes
- Shift changes
Take one moderate-sized process where the ranges multiply out as 5 x 6 x 3 x 4 x 7 x 3 x 6 x 5, which comes to 226,800 possible experiments. I do not know about you, but I do not have time to run a thousand experiments, let alone 226 times that many.
The optimizer does not need to run all of those experiments, because it eliminates the many that will not work. What it excels at is finding hidden opportunities; the search mechanism is unmatched at turning up options I would never have thought to try.
Business process simulation combined with optimization is a beautiful marriage of capabilities, so you can ditch the dice and make better decisions for improving your processes. To put it to work, start a free trial or explore plans and pricing.
