IISRI has the largest team of researchers working in the field of systems modelling and simulation in Australia.

Our research team is led by Professor Doug Creighton and is the research partner of choice for a range of companies and government bodies including the Australian Electoral Commission, GLOBE – a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention, Quickstep, Ambient Intelligence and VicHealth.

By partnering with us, companies and government bodies gain access to our expert team who have extensive experience in the application of discrete event simulation, systems dynamics, agent-based modelling, conceptual modelling of complex systems and decision making under uncertainty. We can also adapt techniques from external fields to assist with the modelling process, research platform tools and technology.

Some of the challenges we have worked on with our partners include:

• Working closely with the Australian Government to investigate the impacts of increased security measures to Australian airports.
• Using rapid modelling techniques for warehouse facilities to dramatically reduce the time required to develop, test and analyse simulation models.
• Rapidly modelling and analysing manufacturing facilities and providing tools to evaluate schedules, resource requirements, facility layouts and the impact of failures and scheduled downtimes.
• Through modelling, we supported changes to Quickstep’s original workflow and labour allocation, to better balance the production workflow for technologies regarding seat structures.
• Worked with Ambient Intelligence to address the capability gaps through its camera network design optimisation and tasks scheduling across its camera networks.

No matter the issue or inefficiency you’d like to overcome, allow our expert team to work closely with your company or government body to deliver a solution.

Long queues have been one of the biggest voter complaints on election days.

However, thanks to a collaboration between the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and IISRI’s modelling and simulation research team, the voter experience has greatly improved.

The AEC devoted a significant proportion of its time and resources to plan and prepare for the 2019 federal election – and that planning paid off.

We began working with AEC in 2017 exploring its performance and resourcing with an initial focus on understanding the queuing behaviour of polling places.

Led by IISRI’s Associate Professor Michael Johnstone, the project involved advanced discrete event simulation and stochastic modelling of strategic scenarios to determine the average time a voter may spend within a polling place and the degree to which this might vary.

We used building models, data sets and scheduling algorithms to make resourcing and scheduling decisions backed by data.

This state-of-the-art computer modelling and data analysis was designed by our IISRI experts and enables the AEC to accurately estimate how many staff were needed at polling places across the country, which significantly reducing queues and wait times.

Using simulations and modelling, we also redesigned polling place layouts to include mini queues – this also involved in training materials, developing a training video on voter flow and queue management and allowing for a surge workforce in larger polling places where necessary. Our modelling also revealed the required number of staff needed for the polling place to perform at optimum.

Almost 9 million voters descended on about 7,000 polling place locations on Election Day. The AEC’s voter survey indicated a large increase in satisfaction in 2019, compared to 2016. Satisfaction with the overall voting experience increased from 87 per cent in 2016 to 94 per cent in 2019. Voter satisfaction with ‘the length of time you had to wait to vote’ increased from 78 per cent in 2016 to 91 per cent in 2019.

Associate Professor Johnstone said some queues at polling places are unavoidable, due to variations in the arrival rates of electors.