AnyLogic North America

What Was The Simulation Analysis for the Oil Rig Collapse in the Gulf of Mexico?

Two weeks ago off the coast of Louisiana a BP oil rig collapsed into the Gulf of Mexico. Since that time we have seen close to 5,000 barrels of oil per day spill into the ocean.

What did BP do to test its technology and did they incorporate simulations of accidents or failures? An article in the Wall Street Journal cited Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) as saying "'What did you do [before the accident April 20] to make you believe this is really going to work?' We never really got an answer," Mr. Stupak said.

Was a simulation model run to test the impact of the potential collapse and what was the simulation analysis of such an event?  

It is easy to pick apart these events in hindsight and perhaps a more in-depth investigation will reveal what really happened.

This shows how accident simulation is no longer reserved solely for nuclear installations, rather simulation modeling can be used to help organizations predict and react to everyday business processes as well as worst case scenarios.

Read all about AnyLogic 6.5 in our Press Release.

http://www.free-press-release.com/news-anylogic-releases-version-6-5-of-its-leading-simulation-and-modeling-environment-1271617877.html

What color is your parachute? Maybe it's our color.

We're looking for a leader to join our consulting team! 

An exciting opportunity for a motivated self-starter with the appropriate business experience and consulting skills.  AnyLogic North America, while a startup, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of XJ Technologies of St. Petersburg, Russian Federation.  Our primary line of business is marketing and selling AnyLogic- one of the premier simulation modeling applications on the market and the only one with the capability to model in multiple paradigms: system dynamics, agent-based modeling, and discrete event or process modeling.

As a leader of our consulting team your primary responsibility will be to build our North American consulting business.  You'll be given a large degree of freedom including development of marketing strategy, pricing, delivery, and coordinating with our consulting team in St. Petersburg. Required skills are a combination of business development and sales preferably in technical or management consulting and simulation modeling expertise.  Knowledge and experience with our AnyLogic software is, of course, highly desirable and will be heavily weighted in our evaluation. Other responsibilities include: project management of any work outsourced to our St. Petersburg team, participation in trade shows and conferences, delivering face-to-face training, providing prospects with software demos, and providing tech support for US customers requiring either US citizenship or immediate support via telephone.

Compensation is base salary plus significant commission.  Travel requirements, other than trade shows and training, will be determined by you as you execute your approved sales strategy.  Relocation is not necessary as we are comfortable working via web meeting, Skype, and email.  Please send resumes to: George Rivas, Director of AnyLogic North America, via grivas@anylogic.com

How can we cope with all this incredible technological change?

You've all seen the "Future Shock"-like videos and ppt's... the ones that tell you that it took Facebook 2 years to reach a 50 Million user penetration level while it took radio 38 years... and that more unique information will be generated next year than in the previous 5,000 years. Scary stuff like that. (If not, here's a fair example:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cfmS6dmfd0 ) 

So if we find ourselves at the inflection point of some exponential curve re information/complexity how can we possibly cope? We can't say that "every generation has felt this way" because it just isn't true. Growth has not been linear it has been accelerating very rapidly. You have seen more change in normal business practice in the last two decades (desktop computers, internet, cell phones, text messaging, IM, iPod's, GPS, Blackberries, PSP's, Cloud computing, location awareness, iPad's, Second Life, Augmented Reality ) than your grandfather and your great grandfather saw in their entire careers combined. 

The only silver lining that I can see is that our tools have been growing in strength and features too. Your great grandfather (somehow) managed projects by mail and chalkboard and didn't even know what a Gantt chart was (ca. 1915 but not popular until much later). Nowadays you have integrated workflow and collaborative tools that are updated automatically and nearly instantly via smartphone and web meeting. (Ok. Some of you have them.) 

One of the reasons I am in the simulation business is that I believe these tools are the next killer app for scientific and business problem solving. Table-based algebra (aka spreadsheets) had its chance; the market may not have marked Excel for extinction yet but I believe it will diminish in importance and ubiquity. Nowadays we can create a simple agent-based simulation for millions of agents running on a laptop in less time that it takes to create a spreadsheet budget. And these models (unlike deterministic spreadsheets) are rife with probabilistic, stochastic, and emergent behaviors. Experiments that actually TELL YOU SOMETHING as opposed to quantifying your assumptions. 

Processor power, computer languages, and UI have grown to the point where you don't have to be a top scientist to run simulations. What's more, tomorrow's workforce will have grown up playing The Sims, and Civilization, and Age of Empires, etc., and will be quite comfortable with this approach. They will be more receptive to systems thinking, feedback loops, and the like. And while the market is cluttered with small vendors it seems that none of the large software houses have cottoned on to this. Where is Microsoft SimPoint? 

So let's hear what you think. Is simulation an evolutionary dead end in analytics like Artificial Intelligence proved to be or is it the next Social Networking movement and we all just barely have time to get in on the ground floor?