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ISE undergraduate team one of three finalists in the IISE FlexSim Software Student Simulation Competition

January 30, 2017

IISE team members

Congratulations to ISE undergraduates Rungpatch Nethnapat, Brandon Pittaway, Courtney Seto, and Dustin Wang for being selected as finalists in the IISE FlexSim Software Student Simulation Competition!

The team has received a stipend to attend the Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference in Orlando, FL, where the competition finals will be held. The Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference is organized by the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers’ Society for Health Systems. Travel expenses for the team will be supported by the Professor Brian W. Mar Endowment Fund.

FlexSim is a healthcare simulation software that allows its users to analyze how components of a healthcare facility impact patient outcomes. The team’s case study investigated how limited critical resources could be optimized to reduce the amount of time patients stay in the hospital. The team modeled the flow of patients through the hospital and made recommendations for the optimal quantity and arrangement of beds in each department to minimize the length of stay.

IISE UW president Courtney Seto stated that they faced an initial learning hurdle, as only one of their team members had prior experience with FlexSim. They had just nine weeks to develop their solution, and Courtney said, “It was a challenge to learn simulation tools while simultaneously learning FlexSim software and analyzing the system.”

Great job rising to the occasion, and good luck at the finals next month!