Arena

Excellent programming language, with great flexibility.

Comentários: I have used it in my professional field, simulating the entrances and exits of ships in port terminals, and from the academic point of view as a teacher, making simulations of manufacturing processes and inventory management.
This wide range of uses is only allowed by software with the flexibility that Arena has.

Vantagens:

What most strikes me is that it combines all the facilities of a high-level program, with the flexibility of a general programming language, which is achieved through the interchangeable templates it has, which in turn have modules for the modeling and analysis of graphic simulation. This flexibility at the time of modeling is associated with the completely hierarchical structure that Arena has.

Desvantagens:

As with any mathematical model: it is a powerful tool that in good hands can be very useful, but in the wrong hands can be very dangerous. This software allows through sensitivity analyzes that simulate, make decisions, which are based only on the simulated scenarios, can be very risky, if the model that has been raised has not been validated with real data and statistics.

Good software for simulation

Vantagens:

User-friendly and great program to learn how to build simulation program. It helps you to detect problems and bottlenecks in the processes. The report of simulation is very useful with good insight to help you with decision making.

Desvantagens:

Some error messages are not directly point to the real root cause. Users need to search for it and figure out by themselves which quite frustrated. No online resources available of how to fix errors. The software only compatible on Windows. The latest updated version look more creative and nice but still has many bugs. The program lagged many times while using and suddenly shut down. Hope the next version will be more stable.

Could Use Better Trainings

Comentários: While it offered a great back end for well versed users and administrators, the roll-out and start up process for a new user was too laborious for the needs of our organization.

Vantagens:

The backend of the software was very customizable and we were continually able to pull out of it the information we were looking for. While it did take some time to get used too, the customization of reports is what really sets the software aside from its competitors.

Desvantagens:

It was a constant struggle to train the average user on the software. The user interface is rather complex and often times our users took so long to get up to speed on the software, that it became non-beneficial for us to continue to use the product.

Useful models -- from very simple to very complex

Vantagens:

I love being able to animate the simulations that I create in Arena. Running the numbers is one thing, but being able to present the results in animated form the business stake holders is even better. It really helps get the non-technical folks on board with the simulation and helps them understand the results. Animation in Arena is easy and I never want to create another simulation without animation.

Desvantagens:

Sometimes it is hard to find answers to questions you have about Arena. The documentation that comes with the software is helpful, but it is limited. I have not been able to find a great website online for Arena support. For more popular software there is tons of help to be found online, but I guess Arena doesn't have a large enough user-base to have an active support community.

A powerful discrete simulation software

Comentários: I used this software to modelate service operations like banks and workshops.

Vantagens:

Arena is an intituive modeling software that allows you to simulate service and production systems, graphic enviroment is easy to follow.

Desvantagens:

Software input analyzer can be better, model´s graphics animation should be easier top set.