Visual agent in organizational research using arena as a simulation tool

摘要

The philosophy of visual agent is to combine graphic user interface with object-oriented design and programming, so as to closely approximate real world behavior. Although Arena, as a discrete simulation package, embodies such characteristics as graphic user interface, hierarchical modeling method and in some sense object-oriented techniques, it does not support fully object-oriented design itself. However, integrated VBA development environment in Arena provide developers more space to involve object-oriented design into their development progress to embrace the idea of visual agent. This paper describes a case of applying Arena in the area of organizational research, in which the method of visual agent serves as an important means of modeling physical units. In the case, VBA codes and Arena modules collaborate with each other to construct diffeent kinds of visual agents thus help to build the entire structures and processes of organizations.