A statistical process control approach for estimating the warm-up period

One means for dealing with initialization bias in simulation experiments is to implement a warm-up period. This requires the correct estimation of the initial transient. A new method for determining the warm-up period, based upon the principles of statistical process control (SPC), is described. The method is tested on empirical data from a simulation model that has been used in a real-life study. In comparing the results to those from two commonly used warm-up methods, it appears that the SPC method performs well. The strengths and weaknesses of the approach are discussed.