This article reviews so-called screening in simulation; i.e., it examines the search for the really important factors in experiments with simulation models that have very many factors (or inputs).The article focuses on a most e¢ cient and e¤ective screening method, namely Sequential...

This article reviews Kriging (also called spatial correlation modeling). It presents the basic Kriging assumptions and formulas, contrasting Kriging and classic linear regression metamodels. Furthermore, it extends Kriging to random simulation, and discusses bootstrapping to estimate the...

In practice, simulation analysts often change only one factor at a time, and use graphical analysis of the resulting Input/Output (I/O) data. Statistical theory proves that more information is obtained when applying Design Of Experiments (DOE) and linear regression analysis. Unfortunately,...

I start this contribution with an overview of my personal involvement - as an Operations Research consultant - in several engineering case-studies that may raise ethical questions; these case studies employ simulation models. Next, I present an overview of the recent literature on ethical issues...

Kriging (Gaussian process, spatial correlation) metamodels approximate the Input/Output (I/O) functions implied by the underlying simulation models; such metamodels serve sensitivity analysis and optimization, especially for computationally expensive simulations. In practice, simulation analysts...

This paper presents a novel heuristic for constrained optimization of random computer simulation models, in which one of the simulation outputs is selected as the objective to be minimized while the other outputs need to satisfy prespecified target values. Besides the simulation outputs, the...

This article presents a novel combination of robust optimization developed in mathematical programming, and robust parameter design developed in statistical quality control. Robust parameter design uses metamodels estimated from experiments with both controllable and environmental inputs...

This paper shows which statistical techniques can be used to validate simulation models, depending on which real-life data are available. Concerning this availability, three situations are distinguished (i) no data, (ii) only output data, and (iii) both input and output data. In case (i) - no...

This paper reviews the state of art in five related types of analysis, namely (i) sensitivity or what-if analysis, (ii) uncertainty or risk analysis, (iii) screening, (iv) validation, and (v) optimization. The main question is: when should which type of analysis be applied; which statistical...

In practice, most computers generate simulation outputs sequentially, so it is attractive to analyze these outputs through sequential statistical methods such as sequential probability ratio tests (SPRTs). We investigate several SPRTs for choosing between two hypothesized values for the mean...