Can anyone offer a comparison 'tween @Risk and Crystal Ball 1

[HamishMcTavish]

Hello all,

I am thinking of buying either @risk or crystal ball simulation tools, which both appear as an extra toolbar in Excel.

Can anyone point me in the direction of a reasonable, independent review that compares the two. They are both approximately the same cost but none of the material I've been able to find on the web does makes a feature by feature comparison.

Plus a lot of the material that I have been able to find is from the creators / distributors...

Many thanks, HM

No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary - William of Occam

 

[d23]

HamishMcTavish:

For what it's worth I had to do a two week "stats" school about a year ago. As a company we use different software than you are looking at. Anytime I compare our software to crystal ball I come up with the same results. If you use crystal ball you should get reasonable results. I have never tried @risk.

My current job actually does not require "stats" to be perform. I design/sell pumping systems in the petroleum industry. The school I went to was one of those company requirement things. A million years ago when I was still in school I was always told there are three types of lies; white lies, damn lies and stats. After my two week school I think this is true.

Example:

When I was at this seminar they were looking for practical problems to work on. I gave them one of mine. I had an oil field that belonged to a good customer. My MTBF (mean time between failures) was over 4 1/2 years. This good customer sold the field to another company. The other company uses one of my competitors. Their MTBF is now less than one year. Using both our software and crystal ball this decision could be justified. The new customer is now paying 4 times more to achieve the same thing. Using “Statistical Analysis” that was a reasonable decision.

I am not a "stats" person unless a little common since is used with it. Crystal ball seems to work as well as any other.

Good luck!

D23

 

[melone]

D23, having spent a majority of my career using stats, the situation you described is a prime example of people using statistics improperly based on either 1) incompetence 2) intention to decieve. Stats are a great TOOL for HELPING to solve problems, but like any tool, if used incorrectly, they will do nothing for you.

 

[HamishMcTavish]

Hi D23

Not sure what you are saying the link is between one customer having a MTBF of 4.5 years and the new customer having MTBF of less than a year. Surely that could be down to other factors than modelling that the initial purchase was sound?


Hi Melone,

Have you used either package? Or do you know anyone who could make a comparison to me? No liability attached!

Many thanks in advance, HM

No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary - William of Occam

 

[melone]

Unfortuantely, I have used neither package. Sorry!