This article was written by Stuart Barber, a mechanical engineering student at the University of Huddersfield, who looks back on his learning of simulation, from a visit to the WITNESS training course to working on many simulation projects during his annual internship in Cummins.

Start and Process with Witness Software

One of the questions I asked myself before I started my practice as a mechanical engineer for Cummins was, “How can I be useful for this business during my internship?” I never worked in the production department before, so I wasn’t sure how exactly my engineering studies could help me in a real work environment.

As a part of my internship, I was asked to attend a training course for the use of WITNESS simulation software that took place in September 2016. Before that, I had no experience with simulation modeling. In fact, I’ve never even heard of predictive simulation! In addition, I have never devoted myself to any form of coding, so I really started from the very beginning.

After finishing up this course, I had all the basic knowledge that was necessary for me to start using WITNESS software and since then, I have used it for several projects, continuing to expand my knowledge and experience. I found that experimenting with new modeling techniques helped to better understand WITNESS and therefore, provide solutions to complex problems.

After nine months, I had five successful simulation projects behind me and three other models in the process. The moment I left Cummins to go back to college, I had completed simulation models from six different business areas across five operations and two continents, which would certainly not be possible if I didn’t learn to use WITNESS.

WITNESS is a great tool that helps me achieve my goals. I’m not sure how I would approach them without using a simulation. I solve problems in areas such as purchasing, distribution network planning, building management and production – all with the help of WITNESS. Here are some examples of the questions I have answered with this software:

  • What areas of our distribution network could significantly shorten delivery time for our customers?
  • How many more people would we have to hire in order to increase production over the next five years?
  • What is the minimum level of inventory needed to process customer orders on time?

Without the use of WITNESS, the search for answers to these questions would be a tremendously challenging task that would require considerable work effort, not to mention how much time it would take. Thanks to WITNESS, I was able to answer these questions with ease and give the result to each department relatively quickly and with convincing evidence of the functionality of the solution I was advocating.

The biggest benefit I have seen when using WITNESS is that the employee is immediately able to work interdisciplinarily, which means that their work becomes more effective and valuable. An example of this is my work with the purchasing and logistics department, where I had no prior knowledge, but by using the WITNESS model, I was able to increase the value of the company without the need to learn details about each department.

As businesses are increasingly forced to adhere to the “lean manufacturing method”, I think it is more advantageous to have employees who can work interdisciplinarily. In addition, they can bring up complex questions contributing different departments and at the same time, answer them using the data provided by experts through identifying key inputs and, of course, the overall understanding of the process.

Using WITNESS has allowed me to both meet and work with a wide range of people and departments, which helped me make a much more accurate picture of how this company works as a whole.

So, to get back to the original question – have I managed to increase the value of the business over the past year?

I learned to work with WITNESS at the beginning of my career and it honestly helped me to form an opinion on how companies should do business. Not only is it clear to me that if any problem occurs, I can solve it with WITNESS, but I also see the benefits working with WITNESS can bring to the project.

Thanks to using WITNESS during my one-year internship, I had the opportunity to work on a much larger number of projects and answer more complex questions than I ever expected. I had the opportunity to improve a lot of different features, and I sincerely believe I have increased Cummins’ value over the years, especially through simulation.