ABSTRACT Advances in technology have also caused an increase in choice. Every day we are faced with a lot of decisions in our life. Some decisions are easy to make while others are very difficult or too complex to make (e.g. a large networking system). Despite there exist some mathematical formulas in determining the most efficient path flow of a network system, most have limitations due to the stochastic nature involved in them. As a last resort engineers and managers have to turn to simulation to help them make decisions. Just a good decision isn’t good enough in today’s competitive environment, rather one seek for an optimal solution. With the aid of switch mechanism, it would be possible to test the path flow through a network system hence creating alternative designs. These alternative designs required computational budget in order to be evaluated. Therefore this study proposes a two stage procedure, simulation and optimization to help make an optimal decision in an efficient manner that require less computational budget through the process of a statistical technique refer to as ranking and selection.
ABSTRACT Advances in technology have also caused an increase in choice. Every day we are faced with a lot of decisions in our life. Some decisions are easy to make while others are very difficult or too complex to make (e.g. a large networking system). Despite there exist some mathematical formulas in determining the most efficient path flow of a network system, most have limitations due to the stochastic nature involved in them. As a last resort engineers and managers have to turn to simulation to help them make decisions. Just a good decision isn’t good enough in today’s competitive environment, rather one seek for an optimal solution. With the aid of switch mechanism, it would be possible to test the path flow through a network system hence creating alternative designs. These alternative designs required computational budget in order to be evaluated. Therefore this study proposes a two stage procedure, simulation and optimization to help make an optimal decision in an efficient manner that require less computational budget through the process of a statistical technique refer to as ranking and selection.