Book excerpt: The first edition of this book was the first text to be written on the Arena software, which is a very popular simulation modeling software. What makes this text the authoritative source on Arena is that it was written by the creators of Arena themselves. The new third edition follows in the tradition of the successful first and second editions in its tutorial style (via a sequence of carefully crafted examples) and an accessible writing style. The updates include thorough coverage of the new version of the Arena software (Arena 7.01), enhanced support for Excel and Access, and updated examples to reflect the new version of software. The CD-ROM that accompanies the book contains the Academic version of the Arena software. The software features new capabilities such as model documentation, enhanced plots, file reading and writing, printing and animation symbols.