PROSIM and Its

Installation Guide
What is PROSIM?
PROSIM, an acronym of Production Simulation, is a business game structured around the
management of a production or operations environment. This is a Windows version of PROSIM,
written in Microsoft’s Visual Basic professional edition. The minimum system requirements for
running PROSIM is: a 386 (or faster) PC with a VGA compatible graphic card (select small fonts
with at least 256 colors, if possible), loaded with Microsoft’s DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 or their
compatible operating system.
The system consists four major modules: (1) System Utilities. This module provides a number of
tool kits for initiating PROSIM configuration (for example, number of firms to be operated, the
set of parameter data to be used, where to access decision data file, etc.) and handling anomalous
operations. (2) Decision Making. This module can be used to enter, update, and/or print decision
making form. (3) Simulation. Emulating a hypothetical production environment, the module can
be used to simulate and evaluate the expected performance of decisions. and (4) Report Display.
The simulated results can be viewed, plotted, and printed via this module.
[Hint]: To use PROSIM, all system files must have been installed (copied) in a hard disk and
properly configured.

System requirements for running PROSIM

The minimum hardware and software to run PROSIM are:
* Personal computer with a 386 or faster processor (CPU).
* A VGA or higher-resolution graphic board and monitor.
* One 3 1/2 high-density (1.44 MB) disk drive and a hard drive with 5 MB available.
* A Microsoft mouse or compatible pointing device.
* 4 MB of available random access memory (RAM). 8 MB recommended.
* A Windows compatible printer (if reports and graphs are to be printed).
* Running MS-DOS version 5.0 or later and Windows version 3.1 or later in 386 enhanced
modes.

How to install PROSIM in a computer?

PROSIM can only be run from a hard drive; therefore, all system files must be copied and
installed in a hard disk. Use the following steps to install the PROSIM system:
* Boot the system (skip if the computer is already on).
* Load the Windows system (skip if the Windows has already been loaded).
* From the Program Manager, use the mouse to select File and then Run from the menu bar.
* Enter A:\SETUP.EXE in the space under the Command Line. Then Click on the OK button to
continue, or the Cancel button to stop the installation.
* Follow instructions to accept the default directory (C:\PROSIM) or specify a new path for
storing the PROSIM files. Click on the Continue button to complete the setup
This process will create a directory PROSIM in the hard disk that you specified (e.g., C), copy
all PROSIM related files to the hard disk, copy all Windows related files to Windows system
subdirectory, and create a PROSIM group with PROSIM and PROSIM.HLP icons inside the
Program Manager.
[ Hint ]: For easy maintenance, we recommend that you use the default setting.
How to create and store decision making data?
To effectively manage and support a realistic production/operations environment, each firm
needs to make many complicated operating decisions. These decisions must be entered and
stored in a data file accessible by PROSIM. The PROSIM system provides users a friendly
online decision making form for this purpose.

[ Hint ]: If the PROSIM system has been properly configured, a default data file, based on the
first periods decision, should have been created for each team; otherwise, you need to
reconfigure the system.

Use your mouse pointer to click over the Decision Making icon or select Modules from the menu
bar and then enter the team number and click on the OK button, an on-line form for your team
will be displayed. Update any needed change (pay attention especially to the decision week) and
click on the OK button to save the data. Click on the Cancel button to give up the change and/or
return to system menu. Click on the Print button to print a copy from a printer If needed, click
on the Next Team button in the message box to create decision files for other teams. (Note: This
option is provided for instructors to test the simulation without needing students' data disks. In
this case the disk drive for accessing the data disk should be set as the default --
C:\PROSIM\DECS).

How to make a simulation run?

[ Hint ]: To run the simulation, a data file for each teams decisions must be created and stored in
a data disk (or in a hard disk).

Use the following steps to make the simulation run:

* Load the PROSIM system.
* Click on the Simulation icon or select Modules from the menu bar.
* Enter the team number to be simulated. Insert that teams data disk (if the default drive is a
floppy disk). Click on the Run button to process the data.
* Click on the More Team button to repeat the simulation for each of the teams. Click on the
Cancel button to terminate the process and return to the system menu.

How to repeat a simulation run?

[ Hint ]: This option is also provided for safety purposes. If for some reason, the simulation
results for a team are quite strange or contain serious errors, you can ask the team to resubmit its
decision data and rerun the simulation. In this case, you can proceed to run the simulation
directly. However, if the systems respond with such a message as Error in Decision Week or
Team Number , then you need to use this option to turn the clock back for one period, and then
run the simulation again. (Note: the utility will allow you to turn the clock back for only one
simulation period.)

Use the following steps to prepare data for another simulation run:
* Load the PROSIM system.
* Click on the System Utilities icon (or select Modules from the menu bar) and then select the
Data Recovery and Recover Last Weeks HIST options
* Enter the team number and click on the OK button to proceed with the process.
* Click on the Cancel button to return to system menu.

How to display and print a PROSIM report?

[ Hint ]: You can only display the report after making a simulation run. Also, the printer must
be connected and properly setup before you can print the reports.

There are three types of reports -- detailed, team summary, and class summary -- available for
displaying and printing. The detailed report provides each team with the completed weekly
simulation results. The team summary accumulates and displays each teams performance
measures. The class summary puts together the current weeks performance measures for all
teams in the class.
To display the reports, use your mouse pointer to click over the Report Display icon or select
Modules from the menu bar and then select the type of report that you want to review. Under
each option, you can further choose any option you want by clicking over the buttons at the top
of each report form. Click on the Print button to print out a copy of the report. Click on the
Cancel button to return to system menu.

How to setup your printer?

[ Hint ]: Your printer must be connected with the computer and properly configured before you
can print decision making form or reports.

After initiating printing, a paper copy of the report should be printed out in a few moments. If it
does not do so, the printer may have not been turned on, connected, properly installed with your
Windows system, or is out of paper. Check the printer and if needed proceed to set it up.
To setup the printer, select Main group from the Program Manager, double-click o the Control
panel icon and then the Printers icon. Specify your printer from the Installed Printers list and
click on Set as Default Printer. If needed, click on the Setup button to change printers
configuration (i.e., color printing, orientation, # of copies, etc.). Please refer to Windows and
printer manuals for any technical details.

How to configure the PROSIM system?

[ Hint ]: The PROSIM system can only be configured after it has been properly Installed.

Use the following steps to configure your PROSIM systems:

* Load the PROSIM system.
* Use your mouse to click on the System Utilities icon (or select Modules from the menu bar)
and then select System Config. option.
* Specify the number of teams to be simulated, select the parameter set to be used, and, if
necessary, change the path for accessing students data disk.
* Click on the Done button. After a warning message, click on the Yes and then OK buttons to
complete the process. Click on the Cancel button to stop the configuration of the system.
This process will create four subdirectories -- SYS, HIST, REPORT, and DECS -- under the
C:\PROSIM directory or the directory that you specified. SYS is used to store the original
decision file, history file, and parameter files. HIST is used to store all the history files (one for
each team). REPORT is used to store all simulated reports. And DECS is used to store all
decision files.
[ Warning ]: Since this process will delete the previous configuration (including simulation
results), you should proceed with care. In other words, the configuration process should be run
only once per term, or in the event that you want to restart the simulation from the first period.

How to change the default disk drive?

The system was flexibly designed such that the default disk drive to access students' data disks
can be changed anytime.

Use the following steps to change the path:

* Load the PROSIM system.
* Click on the System Utilities icon (or select Modules from the menu bar) and then select
System Config. option.
* Use the mouse pointer to click over the disk icon (located at the bottom right of the screen),
and then select the proper path. Or you can enter the path directly on the space (For instance,
enter A:\ for drive A and B:\ for drive B. The default drive is C:\PROSIM\DECS).
* Click on the Save button to store the path, and then click on the Cancel (not Done) button
(located at the bottom left of the screen) to return to system menu.

How to load or run PROSIM?

[ Hint ]: The PROSIM system can only be loaded (run) after it has been properly installed.
The Windows version of PROSIM is designed to be user-friendly and self-documented;
therefore, its operation is fairly straightforward.

Use the following steps to load PROSIM:

* Boot the system (skip if the computer is already on).
* Load the Windows system (skip if the Windows has already been loaded).
* Find the PROSIM group, move the mouse pointer over the icon, double-click on it with left
button. Then double-click on the PROSIM icon. Alternately, you can load PROSIM from the
Program Manager. Select File and then Run from the menu bar; enter
C:\PROSIM\PROSIM.EXE; and then click on the OK button to run PROSIM.
The screen will display a title page and then a System Menu from which you can move on to the
next step.

Installation of PROSIM on your computer

• Please make you that you should not have any versions of PROSIM already installed on
your computer, as this gives you an error, and this only supports few of the operating
systems like windows XP, etc..This is not supported on vista.
• Go to http://www.iit.edu/~jgoldhar/prosim.html
• There you see Download PROSIM software, click here to download PROSIM.
• You find a file to be downloaded on your computer.
• Click the save and save the file at some location of your computer, Please make sure that you
save this file in some new folder, as when you extract this file you get all the supporting
files for this software.
• Then you see the download complete just close that.
• Go to the location(New folder) where you downloaded the file, then right click on the
file then click extract here

• Once you extract the zip file you find some new supporting files don’t delete them
• Then click on SETUP.EXE file over there

• Then you find PROSIM setup.

• Give the location where you want to setup PROSIM, then click on continue
• Then you see the PROSIM Installation complete, click ok.

• You can start working on PROSIM by going to start then, all programs the you
can see PROSIM click on it and you are ready to use PROSIM.
It is important that you read this file completely before you start
working on PROSIM. You will be running the simulation on your own
and a single mistake could result in you having to start from scratch.
Before You Start:
• You will need to use a single computer through out all the moves. I
recommend using a laptop or a home PC.
• PROSIM does not run on Windows ME and has been known to give a few
problems with Windows NT and 98. It is recommended to run PROSIM on
a computer running either Windows 2000 or Windows XP
• It is also very important to read the PROSIM book before you start making
your decisions. If you do no read the book, you will have no idea about
what needs to be done.

Installation instructions:
• Download the file ‘prosim.zip’ from the download prosim section
• Unzip the file and select and run the file ‘setup.exe’, DO NOT USE ANY
OTHER FILE
• Setup will initialize and guide you through the process
• It is recommended to stick with the default directory ‘C:\PROSIM’ during
Installation
• The files will be copied to the system
• At the end of the setup, some of you might see and error box stating ‘Error
loading VBOA300.DLL’. It is very much normal to see this kind of an error
during the setup. Some of you might also get two such errors. Simply hit
ok and proceed
Required Setup (one-time only):
• To run prosim, go to the folder C:\PROSIM, and double click on prosim
• When you run prosim for the first time you need to setup your team
number for the system. Click on ‘System utilities’ and then on ‘System
Config.’ Since each team will be running this simulation independently, for
the purpose of playing the game, every team will be team 1. In the box,
‘Please enter the number of teams’ enter 1.
You will be asked to click yes. Please do so and proceed. It is important
you follow these steps only one, which is during the initial setup. If you
accidentally do this again, you will be sent back to week 1 and will have to
re-run all of your decisions.

Steps to follow (explained down):

These are the typical steps you will need to follow when running PROSIM. The
steps are explained in the following pages.
1) Make decisions
2) Run the simulation for that week
3) Check your results
4) Make decisions for the following week
So, if you make the decisions for Week 1, you will then need to run the simulation
for week 1, check your results for week 1 and then proceed to making decisions
for week 2.
Remember, once the simulation has been run, you cannot make any changes to
that week anymore.

Making Decision:
• Click on ‘Decision Making’. You will again be prompted for your team
number. Remember, regardless of what your assigned team number is,
for PROSIM, all of you are team 1. Enter 1 and the decision making page
will open. This is the page where you make your actual decision. On the
top left you are required to specify the week you are into. Be sure to

change the week number every week as you make your decisions.
Once done with you decisions click on OK.
• You will get a message stating decision files created, and you will have to
choose between next team and cancel. Please hit cancel.
• PROSIM keeps a record of previous weeks. These data files from
previous weeks are required to proceed to the next week. It is therefore
very important that you always use the same computer for running
PROSIM.

Running y
our decisions (Simulations):
Before making the decisions for the next week, you need to run your previous
weeks decisions. So if you inputted the data for week 1, you need to run the
simulation for week 1, get the results and based on those, proceed to week 2. To
run your simulations do the following:
• Click on Simulation
• Make sure that the team number displayed is 1, and click Run.
• You will get a message saying simulation was complete, do you want to
run another team, simply click cancel
• In case you get a message saying ‘error in decision week number’, you
have probably forgotten to change your decision week number in the top
left corner of your decision making page. You will need to go back to
decision making and make a new decision file with the correct week
number. A simulation cannot be run for the same week twice. So if you
have already run your simulation say for week 7, you cannot run it again.
The software will expect the next week to be week 8.

Checking you Results:

Results can be checked by click on Report display. The details report section will
give you the detailed analysis. This is what you will need to refer to before
making your decisions for the following week. Remember, your team number is
always team 1.
Once you check your results you can proceed and make decisions for the
following week and follow the steps in a similar manner.

What you submit:

• Every team will have to submit the following. After every 3rd move, which
is every, 3rd, 6th, 9th and 12th week, you will have to turn in a print out of
your team summary. For doing this, click on Report Display, Team
Summary, enter your team number and choose the print option. On top of
the printed page, put down the names of your team members and your
assigned class team number and turn it in before the end of class, the
week after the move was assigned.
• As stated in the syllabus, at the end of 12 weeks, you will also be required
to submit and present a detailed report about your work.