Software Simulation Spreadsheets

Here is a look at the simulation software you’ll be using.

Simulation Rules:
These are the rules for how the software works – you don’t need to remember all this, it will be apparent once you actually get your hands on the software and start using it, and see the relationships between how changing one parameter forces other parameters to change automatically. Looking at the videos below will help you understand this document.

Simulation Software Videos:
These videos show you how each section of the software works: Research & Development, Marketing, Production and Finance. This is what you’ll be doing with the software as a team – making decisions and inputting numbers into the spreadsheets. Watching these should give you a general idea of what the software is like, and if you’ve read through the student guide or seen the tutorials, you should recognize some of these terms, and may be able to see how they relate to each other better here. If you still don’t understand any of this, please don’t be discouraged, we’ll be teaching all of this information at camp, and you can ask questions here in the comments section of these posts or at camp if you’d prefer to wait.

R&D (Audio) | R&D (Silent)
Marketing (Audio) | Marketing (Silent)
Production (Audio) | Production (Silent)
Finance (Audio) | Finance (Silent)

Basics of What You’ll Be Doing (& tutorials/help files)

This is a brief explanation of what you’ll be doing at SSI:

Each team, or company, of 4 students will be in charge of managing a fictional manufacturing company over the course of 8 years. You will use simulation software (using an excel spreadsheet) called “Foundation” on a computer to do this. You don’t need to know how to use this software ahead of time – it is very simple, and I will show all of you how to use it once you arrive at camp, and coaches are always available to help you throughout the week as well.

When using the software, you will be able to make decisions about what characteristics you want your products to have (within the specified industry of “electronic sensors”), how much of your product to produce, whether to expand your manufacturing plants or automate them, how much to spend on advertising, and how to finance the entire operation. Each “year” you will be able to make or change all of those decisions. You will make those decisions within the software, and once all 6 companies have made their decisions, you will submit them to me, and the software will analyze what each of you did in relation to the others, and decide how much of each product each company sold, and calculate your stock prices, remaining inventory, and remaining cash based on everyone’s decisions.

Once that has happened, you’ll each get a report called “Foundation FastTrack” showing what occurred that year, and you can use that report to analyze what your competitors did, what strategies they might be using to build their companies, and what you should do for the next year. You’ll repeat that process 8 times: making decisions for your company and submitting them, then getting a report back so you can analyze what happened and what you need to do next to make your company succeed at its goals. A successful company is not necessarily the one that sells the most – that is only part of the equation. You will receive a score based on “cumulative profits”, “stock price”, “return on equity (RoE)”, and “market capitalization”. (Don’t worry, we’ll explain what each of those are at camp, and how you affect each one for your company.)

That’s the basics. We’ll go over it much more in-depth on the first day of camp, of course, and there are other details you’ll learn along the way. NOTE: You can ignore anything related to the Human Resources or TQM aspects of the simulation software. Those are parts of the software that we will shut off for our purposes.

Here are some files to get you started:

Intro Lessons

Each of these is the same lesson, just in a different format.
Video Version with audio
Video Version without audio
Non-Video Version (webpage) part 1
Non-Video Version (webpage) part 2

If you read the non-video version, make sure to go through both parts 1 and 2.

Guides

Student Guide
You will have a printed copy of this booklet given to you at camp. This is the first thing you will be instructed to read, so you can get a head start by reading through it now. If you don’t understand it, don’t worry we’ll be going through everything in it at camp, and you can always ask questions on this blog as well.

Manager Guide
This guide is only available online, not in written format, but you will have an internet connection at camp during your study times so you can refer to this as well. There is a LOT more information here than you will need, so don’t be intimidated. Again, ask questions if you want to, that’s what this site is here for.

Business Track Schedule for the Week

Everyone in this track has attended SSI previously, so you should have a good idea of what the schedule is like in terms of what you’ll be doing each day. Here is the actual Business Schedule, which at the moment is missing a couple speaker names for some sessions (I’ll update you on these as the info becomes available).

You will all be split up into teams of 4, and will work as a team for the entire week. On the schedule, the yellow times are when you will be working solely as a team in your own room with your own computer (to run the simulation and use the online resources). During that time, coaches will be available to help you, and will walk around to each time to explain things, or you can come find a coach if you need help.

Tomorrow I’ll post an explanation of what you’ll be doing during the week, along with the initial tutorials and guides for you to look at, and next week we’ll let you take a peek at the coaches’ doing the same thing you’ll all be doing. If you have any questions, please post comments after any post on this page, or if you don’t know how to do that or would rather ask privately, feel free to email me at tim@ssi-online.org.

Student Statesmanship Institute Business Track Blog

This blog has been created as a response to last year’s Student Statesmanship Institute Business Track students requesting that they receive information ahead of time before the camp starts. There is a lot of reading material to go through, and they felt they didn’t have enough preparation time during the week to read through everything.

So, on this blog we will do a few things:

1. Publish links to the business track printed and online materials and help files, including some video and audio tutorials

2. The coaches will run their own business simulation before camp, and we will not only show the results of each round here for students to view, but each coach will also have the opportunity to explain their own strategy and decisions, and analyze whether they achieved their goals or not.

3. Allow anyone (students, students’ parents, or anyone in the general public) to post comments after each article here. You are welcome to ask questions in your comments, and the instructor (Professor Gary Britten), myself (Tim) or one of the other coaches will answer your questions as we can.

I hope this will be a useful resource for all the students that wish to use it. Good luck to everyone participating in the program!