Journal Article

Simple Procedures for Selecting the Best Simulated System When the Number of Alternatives is Large

Nelson, Barry L, Song, Wheyming, Goldsman, David, Swann, Julie

2001

Overview

In this paper, we address the problem of finding the simulated system with the best (maximum or minimum) expected performance when the number of alternatives is finite, but large enough that ranking-and-selection (R&S) procedures may require too much computation to be practical. Our approach is to use the data provided by the first stage of sampling in an R&S procedure to screen out alternatives that are not competitive, and thereby avoid the (typically much larger) second-stage sample for these systems. Our procedures represent a compromise between standard R&S procedures-which are easy to implement, but can be computationally inefficient-and fully sequential procedures-which can be statistically efficient, but are more difficult to implement and depend on more restrictive assumptions. We present a general theory for constructing combined screening and indifference-zone selection procedures, several specific procedures and a portion of an extensive empirical evaluation.

• Publisher: INFORMS,Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
• Subject: Applied statistics / Computer simulation / Design of experiments / Experiment design / Experimental design / Group size / Industrial engineering / Kurtosis / Operations research / Optimization / Planning / Population / Population mean / Random numbers / Sample mean / Sample size / Simulation / Simulation methods / Simulation, design of experiments: two-stage procedures / Simulation, statistical analysis: finding the best alternative / Skewed distribution / Statistical analysis / Statistical discrepancies / Statistics, design of experiments / Studies / Systems engineering