Nominal Use Scenario 1

A teacher tells their students to open up the Supply Chain Simulation app. The students open the app and see the initial screen of:

• A map of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (the U.P.)
• Nodes strewn about the map
• Play, pause, and redo buttons at the top left
• Import and export buttons on the bottom left
• A UI to the right side of the screen displaying:

• The current budget
• The environmental impact
• The current supply of copper
• The current demand of copper

The teacher then tells the students to create a supply chain that doesn’t go over a budget of $5 million.

        The students begin creating the supply chain by clicking on the nodes. Clicking on a node sets it to be connected to the next node clicked. As the students create the supply chain, the application calculates the expected budget and environmental impact of the supply chain. Once a student creates a satisfactory supply chain, they can run the application to view the supply chain in action.

        The teacher asks the students to export their simulation and submit that file on an online assignment. The student pauses the simulation and clicks the export button. The application gathers all current settings and creates a file that is downloaded onto the user’s device. The teacher later downloads those files and they are able import those files into the application. The application parses through the file and creates the simulation based off of the file.

Nominal Use Scenario 2

        A teacher tells their students to open up the Supply Chain Simulation app. The students open the app and see the initial screen (the same as the previous scenario). The teacher then tells the students to create a supply chain that minimizes the environmental impact.The students begin creating the supply chain by clicking on the nodes. Clicking on a node sets it to be connected to the next node clicked. As the students create the supply chain, the application calculates the expected budget and environmental impact of the supply chain. Once a student creates a satisfactory supply chain, they can run the application to view the supply chain in action.

The teacher asks the students to export their simulation and submit that file on an online assignment. The student pauses the simulation and clicks the export button. The application gathers all current settings and creates a file that is downloaded onto the user’s device. The teacher later downloads those files and they are able import those files into the application. The application parses through the file and creates the simulation based off of the file.

Error Use Scenarios

        During Scenario 1, one of the students wishes to change their supply chain during the simulation. After attempting to click on the nodes to add more connections, the application doesn’t add the connections. This is because the application does not allow for alterations to be made while the simulation is running.

        While creating the simulation, one student tries to edit the demand UI and accidentally makes the demand a positive value (i.e. the demand would now be producing the resource) and tries to run the simulation. The application will not run when the play button is pressed and an error message appears saying that the demand should be a negative value (i.e. demand < 0 ). The student then edits the demand UI and makes the demand negative.