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I'm teaching an Operations Management Class. A long time ago, there was a simple DOS-based product called MPX. It was based on queuing theory and let you model manufacturing processes. There was nice case that went with it call GTHUBS-- something like 5-10 SKU's going through 5-10 machines, with some different routings, set-ups, labor requirements, etc.. It was interesting to try different things to see what impact the changes had on overall cycle time.

The DOS interface was ugly, but super simple. And, students could figure it out.

I can no longer find this program or case study.

Does anyone still use this? Does anyone have a good replacement for this that they use in their classes?

SecretAgentMan
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Michael Watson
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  • I don't know about MPX, but with using modern simulations software, you could try this with many options and features. Some of them have the 2D/3D area to represent the graphical view of the model. – A.Omidi Feb 03 '20 at 05:00

2 Answers2

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Sure thing, you can download from archive.org. You need to run it in DOSBOX.

MPX and GT Hubs

MPX and GT Hubs

SecretAgentMan
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Grunchy
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    Wow. Nee poster comes along and provides THE answer to the original question, and gets downvoted. Give me a break. – Mark L. Stone Nov 04 '21 at 20:56
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    Downvote was removed. – Mark L. Stone Nov 05 '21 at 18:24
  • (@Grunchy). Kevin. This is perfect. Thanks for finding this. Do you have some connection to MPX and the underlying ideas behind it? I would love to connect to people from that organization or whoever still owns the IP. – Michael Watson Dec 29 '21 at 17:58
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    Nope, I have no connection. I just happened to keep a copy of this on diskette from my time at University of Calgary, and the diskette still works! I got it from my professor Dr. Rogers: https://schulich.ucalgary.ca/contacts/paul-rogers

    (If you loaded it you probably would have noticed that it had been personalized for us). Unfortunately the software is so hobbled for students that this copy has no practical use whatsoever, and we don't know who are the people behind it. Nevertheless this copy still works as it had been designed. If you get in touch with Dr. Rogers, "hi" from Kevin!

     – Grunchy Dec 31 '21 at 15:50
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Edit: Grunchy delivers the perfect answer to your question.

However, if you want to try out something else, see my answer below:

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I recommend SIMIO if you just want to play around and visualize some basic qeueing concepts. It uses decent 3D Animations and you can easily apply different skins to the resources and objects, to visualize flows and processes. In order to switch from 2D to 3D mode, just hit "3" on your keyboard. If you want to perform some advanced simulation studies, I recommend AnyLogic.

If you prefer an open source solution, that, however, is less intuitive and requires some basic programming knowledge, you should check out SimPy

zeybringtbei
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