Most popular features of all Industry Specific apps
25 reviewers had the following to say about Simio's features:
Pros
Users like the customizable entities and integration of downloadable 3D models to make the visualization very realistic.
Cons
Data import of large data sets with many different attributes is limited by the current interface.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Monthly
Ability to visually show to management how bad the queuing can be and the effect of adding resources.
Pros
Very easy to use even for someone that has no experience in modelization or operational research.
Cons
We can't write in a single CSV file the results of multiple replications. Need to use a VBA code to merge the CSV file of each replication
Rating breakdown
Time used: 6-12 months
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Able to simulate and assess "what-if" scenarios for complex airline operations for understanding investment benefits, operational bottlenecks, and potential benefits of process improvements.
Pros
Enterprise team version allows us to have multiple users with limited amount of license; Easy to integrate with Excel for data input and output
Cons
Marginally on the higher side of memory intensive application; does not have/limited option/APIs to use the simulation engine outside of the SIMIO application.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Monthly
Likelihood to recommend
I have been using SIMIO to optimize airport operations for six years and have been very happy with its ease of use, versatility, built-in features, and capability to customize processes. Technical support from SIMIO has always been good. People are pleased with the quality of the visual output and now that we can use the Occulus Rift to provide an immersive experience, there is even more to be pleased about SIMIO.
Pros
Ability to embed metrics in the simulation.
Cons
Management of interaction between entities during movement in free space to simulate for instance pedestrian movements on a sidewalk.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering Simio
Take the initial training course customized to your particular type of simulation to get properly set up.
Overall, Simio is a fantastic software package that can we used to optimize current processes and model future state scenarios. I would recommend any manufacturing company to use this software.
Pros
I enjoyed the out of the box drag and drop functionality that allows for a new user to learn how to configure models quickly.
Cons
We used a third party to provide support and custom programming in our model.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Monthly
Likelihood to recommend
It is a good simulation software with easy to understand charts and reports. Its visuals are very good and easy to use.
My learn about simio simulation software, begin in the university in my class of plant design, is a software very versatile and is very easy the integration with other software like sketchup for 3D model's and visualization
Pros
I consider that Simio has an excellent set of feature for animations, statistical reports and scenery comparison tools.
Cons
Too much details for modelling discrete event dynamic systems, what difficult the modelling of systems.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 6-12 months
Frequency of use: Occasionally
The software easily allowed me to manipulate the system in order to achieve my objectives, it is well designed and is customizable to great extent.
Pros
Easy of use and very intuitive when you get introduced with the basic.
Cons
Advanced functions might get hard to use if you don't have an experienced user helping you. Error messages could be more explicit and create a reference to where the configurational conflict lies.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 6-12 months
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
It has helped with making recommendations on staffing models, equipment use, and the impact on turnaround times. The stakeholders appreciate the predictability component to be able to test different scenarios before trying it in real life.
Pros
It has extensive functionality that stakeholders can easily understand and see value in.
Cons
It does not have a good way to represent statistics by hour of day which is important to a hospital that runs 24/7.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 6-12 months
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
Despite this I have found it easy to create some quite complex scenarios and obtain some very useful data that I would not have otherwise been able to get.
Pros
Intuitive, good graphics, simple to use once you have understood some of the quirks regarding work centre programming.
Cons
The reports have too much information (pivot tables) and I have yet to work out how to isolate specific work centres at specific times.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering Simio
Get hold of an evaluation copy and use the on line tutorials. These are really great and informative. The support team are very friendly as well and also a mine of useful knowledge and experience.
As a profesor and a researcher, my students and I take advantage of its flexibility, easy of use, and performance.
Pros
easy of use
Cons
a bigger library and the possibility of integrating all simulaiton paradigms
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Monthly
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering Simio
You should have a free student versión. just for 6 months.
Pros
The software has good functionality and is easy to apply and model.
Cons
The preview interface is not very dynamic and user friendly.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Occasionally
Likelihood to recommend
Pros
Integrates well with data bases and can be readily extended for specific applications.
Cons
Sometimes its hard to keep up with the latest development, due to frequent updates and development. The development version cycle is about six weeks, so updates and new features come out frequently.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Great for shifting from 2D to 3D
Pros
General visual capability, real-time 3D development, ability to use Windows based functionality, ability to import external CAD drawings with ease
Cons
Slowing down and slight glitches with large visual models. More learning tools and Simbits would also be helpful.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
Pros
I like having the ability to rapidly model quick systems, but also having the ability to add in any level of complexity.
Cons
i least like the inability to view logs over multiple simulations to track information like buffer queues over time.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
My team and me are teaching simulation with SIMIO because is friendly and very powerfull. Students understand software quickly an also, a posgraduate student made his Magister Thesis in quality engineering with a simulation as tool to predict behavior. He learned quickly and SIMIO was a useful tool to his work.
I find Simio very powerful simulation language with lots of features. I taught ARENA and SIMAN prior to learning Simio three years ago. However, my students find it hard to learn how to model using Simio, especially advanced features (concept of Model vs Model Entity State Variables, tables and matrices). I have not mastered Scheduling part of Simio yet which I would like to teach in a Scheduling Theory course, one of these days.
We use this software to model some of our DC processes currently and will expand this over time to model more of our supply chain.
Pros
Endlessly customizable - you can pretty much model any process within your business and test variations quickly without investing in expensive prototyping processes.
Cons
Its plugin and extension functionality is still fairly basic and not as user friendly as it could be.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 6-12 months
Frequency of use: Monthly
Likelihood to recommend
Pros
The "3D Warehouse" that connects automatically is free and very complete for improving your existing model.
Cons
I recently started to use Dashboards. However, there is not much info about how to use it and develop it.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Add Google Warehouse and importing 3DSMax files and decent visuals can be shown.
Simio has resulted to be much more complex to use than I imagined at first. I feel it's a brilliant piece of software, but still unfinished. Fits better to academic than industrial users. Sales strategy can only be described as "counter-arena-wise".
Pros
Elegant interface and data structure, Siman brought to its best.
Cons
Lack of support for big models. Limitations in graphical display. Many expressions too deeply embedded. Too much clicks required. Lack of quick programming shorcuts.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering Simio
No, just on the sales strategy.
It is easy to use and customer support is always available to help.
