Tussauds wax lyrical about witness

To evaluate multiple scenarios for optimising the guest experience at one of the world's most popular leisure experiences, Madame Tussauds adopted Lanners Witness simulation

To evaluate multiple scenarios for optimising the guest experience at one of the world's most popular leisure experiences, Madame Tussauds, part of the Tussauds Group, adopted Lanners Witness simulation, and managed to apply a cost-avoidance strategy that saved the business 2 million pound expenditure.

"We have achieved amazing results that will support the World's greatest city-centre attraction to become even greater in terms of guest care (no compromise) and financial performance (no compromise)" said James Bradbury, General Manager, Madame Tussauds.

With more than 2 million visitors per year, Madame Tussauds (MTL) initially turned to process simulation modelling to understand and evaluate the guest flow and capacity process at Madame Tussauds.

Ensuring a world-class memorable experience for visitors through continual optimisation of these processes is a key driver for MTL to maintain their world-leading position and ensure that challenging performance targets are met.

In a joint project, MTL and Lanner were able to build a dynamic simulation model of the guest flow in order to understand both the processes behind it and what the capacity considerations should be at different times of the day.

At peak times over 10,000 guests per day pass through the doors to interact with the famous and infamous.

The number and type of visitors and the variability in arrival rates (by time of day, day of the week and time of year) present challenges to the business in achieving their aim of throughput maximisation and guest enjoyment whilst maintaining the exacting standards of health and safety.

Key flow parameters for guest dwell times and arrival rates were captured directly to a laptop using cordless barcode scanners.

The dynamic simulation model, jointly developed by MTL and Lanner, was populated with this data and enabled MTL to ask quantifiable "What if?" questions relating to both future investment strategies and ongoing process change decision-making.

Output from the project resulted in the project team agreeing to alter a potential investment strategy worth £2 million, which may otherwise have been invested without yielding the desired results.

MTL has been a major London tourist attraction since 1835, and comprises a spectacular array of interactive attractions from 'Do the Johnny' with Johnny Wilkinson, 'Chamber of Horrors' (including Chamber Live!), 'The London Planetarium' 'Spiderman' and 'Blush', the World's coolest party.

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