Customer Reviews

Simulation with Arena w/ CD-Rom

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While this book does have some useful content from the couple chapters I have read, the material is overshadowed by a serious problem - this is almost not readable in the literal sense.

There is something about the small font size and presentation that makes reading the book tough on the eyes, even with a bright light. I read a lot and this is one of the worst presentations I have seen. The other students in the class who I talked with about this textbook also had the same comment. For a book that charges over $100, this is inexcusable.

Unless you want to wind up with a pair of glasses sooner than you think or get a stronger prescription than you have now, avoid this book.

This book achieves its objective. I had not done simulations for years, and this book walks you through the process of learning Arena. It starts out simple--even without actual computer models, just a manual process. It moves through simple high-level, pre-coded models, and then adds complexity. All told, if you work your way through the book, you will understand Arena, a widely used programming language. Note, however, that the student version of the software in this book can only manipulate 15 entities. That's okay for learning, but for real production simulations to answer real questions, then you would need the professional version. That, of course, costs thousands of dollars. Your company would buy this. So, you see where I'm going: if you don't work in an environment that uses Area professionally, all the stuff you learned that is Arena-specific is, well, like memorizing baseball statistics. A nice hobby, but...

This is a nice book aimed at begineers with lot of nice examples.
The user can start modelling confidently after reading this book and is indispensable for the beginners.A novice can grasp the concepts easily but for an advance learner who is more intrested in integrating VB code less help is available. More emphasis should be laid on the advanced concepts and a short review of commands of SIMAN /CINEMA coupled with some examples would have made this bok truely exceptional.

The book is way too wordy. Who has the time to read on and on to figure out even smallest of the issues like errors after running the compiler to execute the file. I do not know if there are alternatives. I did not have one as my prof highly recommended it for course proceedings. It is a stupid's giude explaining all abc's unnecessarily. This book is a absolute hassle for mini course takers in this subject or learner's on the fly.

Overall this is a good book, if a bit overpriced and wordy. Let me put it this way, I guess I really wouldn't want to be without this book. On the other hand, I found it frustrating to use when I needed quick answers, as these authors love getting right into the details. For example, when I wanted to add a conveyor to a process I was modeling, there wasn't a simple introduction at the beginning of the conveyer section to provide a quick, adequate overview. The book doesn't use effective formatting to help one quickly find specific things needed (i.e., Entities Entering Along Conveyor; Entity Proceeds if There is Space; Power and Free Conveyor; Synchronous Movement of Entities; Basic Accumulating; Basic Nonaccumulating; Processing on a Conveyor; Selecting Based on Inspection; Varying Entity Sizes on Accumulating; Failures for Conveyors; Two Merging to One; Choosing Alternate Conveyors; Merging Conveyors; Shrinking Parts on a Conveyor; etc.). Though I recommend this book, you may want to supplement it with another one (i.e., such as a "Dummy" type book) for those times when you need simple, fast answers.

I read this book from cover to cover and thought it was well written. It taught me a lot about Arena and I learned to appreciate what it does for you. It is a very nice piece of software and this book describes it pretty well.

Teach how to use Arena to do simulation in details. Present so clearly that anyone can enter the simulation world easily.