DEDAN KIMATHI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

University Examinations 2020/2021

FOURTH YEAR SEMESTER I EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

CIT 4104: SIMULATION AND MODELING

DATE: TIME:

Instructions: Answer Question 1 and Any Other Two.

Question 1: (30 Marks)

a) Define simulation and modeling.
(2 marks)
b) Explain three purposes of simulation
(6 marks)
c) Describe the usage of the following tools for developing a problem statement
i. Fishbone chart (2 marks)
ii. Pareto chart (2 marks)
d) Distinguish between the following aspects;
i. Analytical solution vs simulation solution (4 marks)
ii. Deterministic models vs stochastic models (4 marks)
e) Considering a discrete-event system of a one operator barbershop, outline three
state variables of this system.
(3 marks)
f) Distinguish between next-event time advance and fixed-increment time
advance approaches in discrete-event simulation models.
(3 marks)
g) Illustrate how a generator is implemented by SimPy to describe a process.
(4 marks)

Question 2: (20 Marks)

a) Discuss three advantages of simulation.
(6 marks)
b) Write a simple SimPy program that simulates a car parking for 5 time units after
which it drives for 2 time units then goes back to parking.
(8 marks)
c) Demonstrate how the car environment in 2(b) can be used to create a process
within SimPy's environment.
(3 marks)
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 d) Suppose the process created in 2(c) is simulated for 20 time units. Give the output
of the simulation.
(3 marks)

Question 3: (20 Marks)

a) Consider the following diagram showing a realization of a single server queuing

system.

Fig. 1

Suppose this system is observed for a period of 8.4 seconds depicted by event e13,
calculate an estimate of the average number of customers in the queue not being
served.
(5 marks)
b) Explain three advantages of modeling with general simulation languages
(3 marks)
c) Define Monte Carlo Simulation.
(2 marks)
d) Discuss pitfalls associated with carrying out a simulation project.
(10 marks)

Question 4: (20 Marks)

a) Discuss components of a Discrete-Event Simulation Model.

(10 marks)
b) A car-wash has a limited number of washing machines. It defines a washing
processes that takes some (random) time. Car processes arrive at the car-wash at a
random time. If one washing machine is available, they start the washing process
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 and wait for it to finish. If not, they wait until they can use one. Write a program to
simulate this scenario.
(6 marks)
h) Considering the simulation depicted in Fig. 1, calculate an estimate of the expected
utilization of this server during the simulation.
(4 marks)

END.