Simio Awards $79,200 Grant to School of Business
Simulation Software Licenses Awarded to Support Teaching and Research in Simulation
Simio, a developer of 3D object-oriented simulation software, has awarded software licenses valued at $79,200 to the School of Business, which offers several courses where cutting edge simulation technology can be integrated. MSUM’s School of Business provides is a leading business program in the region and is one of the largest at MSUM offering several majors and multiple minors.
MSUM is now one of over 190 universities worldwide to join Simio’s academic program, which licenses Simio’s 3D modeling software to schools at no charge. Simio Academic Edition is fully capable software with no model size limits and includes discrete and continuous modeling, object library development, and 3D animation.
“The faculty at Minnesota State University Moorhead is committed to providing the best environment for their students to learn simulation,” said Dr. Dennis Pegden, Founder and CEO of Simio. “We are honored to provide them with the best software available to teach their students.”
Ashish Gupta, Associate Professor of Operations Management, received the grant for teaching and research activities in the School of Business. “Students taking courses in the area of Supply Chain Management, Operations Management and Project Management stand to benefit tremendously from this grant by learning to model real world phenomena.” Gupta adds, “Interaction with simulation models developed with Simio can help us train our students better in terms of dealing with the complexities and dynamism embedded in business processes and understand various scenarios. Case study approaches don’t always capture change and are not as flexible.”
Professor Gupta plans to use Simio in his research as well. He intends to use Simio models to understand information flow in healthcare organizations, to model the disease management process and to solve the problem of information overload in enterprises.
Gupta says, “Simio capabilities and user interface is unmatched.” He explains, “What gives Simio an edge over other simulation software are presence of some cutting-edge functionalities such as its 3D animation capabilities, ability to connect with Google 3D Warehouse and to create new reusable custom objects along with various analysis capabilities.”
Students at the school will be able to model systems using intelligent objects and the software’s direct connection to Google’s 3D Warehouse – two features unique to Simio. The intelligent objects are built by modelers and then may be reused in multiple modeling projects. These objects can be stored in libraries and are easily shared. Simio’s connection to Google’s 3D Warehouse gives access to a free online library of thousands of graphic objects – providing students with the ability to solve real-world problems in visually rich environments.