A Service Flow Simulation Method Using Multi-aspect Scene Transition Nets (STNs) Modeling

摘要

Recently, a new academic field, "service engineering," has been very actively investigated. However, there are few effective methods and tools to simulate and evaluate services designed based on the concept of service engineering. The authors previously proposed a service flow simulation method that uses scene transition nets (STNs), which is a graphic modeling and simulation method for discrete-continuous hybrid systems. However, this method does not consider the manner in which complex service flows are modeled and simulated, including multiple layered, parallel, and interrupted structures, and it is difficult to construct STN models of such complex systems using the existing STN concepts. In this paper, the authors propose a new STN modeling method that uses "multi-aspect STN modeling" concepts to provide easy methods for modeling such complex services. The experimental results for the modeling and simulation of an elevator monitoring service demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.