Evaluation of the DESI interface for discrete event simulation input data management automation

摘要

Discrete event simulation (DES) is a powerful tool of modelling and analysis used in different disciplines. DES projects rely heavily on data in order to compute different parameters that drive the simulations. DES is usually performed on specialized DES software, which performs the simulations but does not prepare the data to set up the simulations. Professionals and practitioners who use DES agree that the preparation of data for DES projects is a highly manual process and is extremely time-consuming in relationship to the entire duration of DES projects. On average, 31% of DES projects time is devoted to input data management. This article presents an innovative user interface, called DESI, which collects and processes data for DES projects in an automated manner, producing results in real time, in response to intuitive user inputs. This article demonstrates that the DESI interface reduces the time devoted to input data management, addresses current gaps in DES input data management and because it does not rely on the previous existence of data, it can be used in different disciplines where DES modelling is appropriate.