This presentation was made at the 2019 NAFEMS World Congress in Quebec Canada

Resource Abstract

The expansion of the use of simulation across the product lifecycle is critically dependent on full confidence in the veracity of the results of numerical simulations. It’s not sufficient that the results are correct, the process through which the results are obtained to support business or regulatory decisions needs to be transparent, traceable, repeatable and fully documented. Traditional manual documentation methods based on notebooks and shared drives are no longer fit for purpose in a world of simulation data sets of increasing complexity distributed across virtual teams. Free format reporting in a notebook , even if electronically based, is hard to read and opinions on the items of information that need to be recorded may differ.

Simulation Data Management(SDM) solutions, which record complete simulation data sets including process data, have been in production more than a decade, but uptake has been slow, 1% to 2% of analysts. SDM solutions are inherently resource intensive to design and deploy due to the diversity of simulation activities, so an enterprise-wide deployment can take years to complete.

A prerequisite for an SDM deployment is a formal definition of the data to be collected, the input forms and the reporting templates

An alternative approach to SDM to suitably document a Simulation is to use Planning and Reporting templates. NAFEMS published “How to Plan a CFD Analysis” in 2003, which includes paper templates for planning and reporting different categories of CFD simulation. These templates codify the information which should be collected for these different categories of simulation. Codified templates greatly facilitate collection, retrieval and communication of simulation data. Enterprise-wide deployment of a template-based approach to Simulation Records can be achieved rapidly and can deliver three main benefits:

1) Simulations are planned and recorded in a consistent, professional manner enhancing simulation practice in the organisation and collaboration with “client” departments

2) Simulation records can be found and accessed rapidly even if the analyst is not available or has left the organisation, promoting reuse of past work

3) The development of planning and reporting templates and the data collected on the volume and type of simulations executed, the applications used and the time taken provide the information needed to plan the deployment of Simulation Data Management solutions

The authors discuss the merits of different approaches to capturing Simulation Planning and Reporting Data including electronic forms, modular electronic forms and a database approach based on the MoSSEC standard.The authors conclude that Simulation Planning and Reporting is an important step in the improvement of simulation governance and to prepare for SDM deployments.