Dynamic simulation is a term that is more and more common in the area of strategic decision making, although, various companies still don’t have a clue about it and can’t imagine its use in practice. That’s why we’ve prepared an interview with Ing. Petr Jaluvka and Ing. Jan Slajer from DYNAMIC FUTURE who will outline the whole point of dynamic simulation in practice by answering several questions to us. DYNAMIC FUTURE are the pioneers of dynamic simulation who have been mining hard data using the WITNESS software from the British Lanner Group for fifteen years. As Petr Jaluvka states in the interview – dynamic simulation is, in fact, the materialization of darkness, hard numbers that come out after every dynamic simulation and if the result is disliked, initiation of the internal change process is needed.

What is dynamic simulation?

Petr Jaluvka: Simply put, the projection of the real world into the world of ones and zeros. Exact answers for inexact questions. I like to paraphrase it – materialization of darkness.

Jan Slajer: Dynamic simulation, or currently predictive simulation, is actually a transmission of a real process into computer environment, mostly in order to verify a change (optimization of the given process). With this simulation type, we predict the state of the specific process in new conditions, so that we can prevent mistakes and imperfections caused by an inaccurate process setting and, therefore, suggest an optimal solution for that process.

For what type of companies is dynamic simulation suitable?

Petr Jaluvka: At first, we thought that it’s primarily useful for manufacturing companies.Today, after 15 years, I can’t see any limitations. It’s possible to simulate any kind of process – any company.

Jan Slajer: Simulation can be used by companies in all industries. Especially by manufacturing companies considering the complexity of production and logistic processes, although, dynamic simulation is used for process verification in companies focusing on services as well.

What are the advantages of dynamic simulation compared to common practices?

Petr Jaluvka: Interaction with the submitter. We need to know the details that they would not consider, even though the details are absolutely crucial for the specific process. We return hard numbers. When they are disliked, together, we start to think about what needs to be changed in order to reach the required result.

Jan Slajer: The greatest advantage is verification of the “change” within a risk-free environment. After creating a model, I can, with no risk, change the number of workers, the emplacement of manufacturing devices in a production hall, the number and type of handling means, the size of production batches or verify new customer requirements, simply by changing the parameters and almost immediately, I can see the impact on the functioning of the whole process.

What software for dynamic simulation is available on the Czech market?

Petr Jaluvka: There’s a lot of software. For dynamic simulation, we’ve been using, from the very beginning, SW Witness, which we are fond of thanks to its easy management and wide range of use. Also, helpfulness and willingness of the manufacturer – Lanner Group company – to solve problems is not very common in this area.

Jan Slajer: On the Czech market, there is a lot of software tools of different levels and the most complex one is probably WITNESS from the British company Lanner Group. Other tools include Plant Simulation or Simul8.

Specify two successful examples of dynamic simulation application from your practice

Petr Jaluvka: We’ve realized an interesting project for our customer KOMA MODULAR s.r.o. within the context of EXPO 2015. Italian authorities require the safety of the pavilions’ visitors to be verified using dynamic simulation. There was another equally interesting project for the Linde Material Handling Slovenská republika s.r.o. company, where we managed to perform a complete analysis of handling equipment, including an optimization proposal, in only 7 days, as part of their participation in a selection process of the HELLA SLOVAKIA company.

Jan Slajer: The simulation is very successfully utilized in the Magna Exteriors & Iteriors (Bohemia), s.r.o. company, Liberec enterprise, where they’ve been using it for a couple of years for manufacturing processes verification. Another successful company is, for example, the company DHL Logistics (Czech Republic) s.r.o., where the emplacement of depots for the DHL and PPL companies was also verified using simulation.