Abstract
Distributed Simulation (DS) allows existing models to be composed together to form simulations of large-scale systems, or large models to be divided into models that execute on separate computers. Among its claimed benefits are model reuse, speedup, data privacy and data consistency. DS is arguably widely used in the defence sector. However, it is rarely used in Operations Research and Management Science (OR/MS) applications in areas such as manufacturing and healthcare, despite its potential advantages. The main barriers to use DS in OR/MS are the technical complexity in implementation and a gap between the world views of DS and OR/MS communities. In this paper, we propose a new method that attempts to link together the methodological practices of OR/MS and DS. Using a representative case study, we show that our methodological framework simplifies significantly DS implementation.
Highlights
For many decades, researchers and practitioners in the field of Operations Research and Management Science (OR/MS) have used Modelling and Simulation (M&S) for systems analysis and decision making
To illustrate our OR/MS Distributed Simulation (DS) methodological framework processes, we give a detailed walk-through of an example of a hybrid Agent-Based Simulation (ABS)-Discrete Event Simulation (DES) DS of a large Emergency Medical Services (EMS) system based on pervious work
The equivalent single simulation is limited by size/execution time.The distributed version always performs better, with the best execution difference being the 4week run
Summary
Researchers and practitioners in the field of Operations Research and Management Science (OR/MS) have used Modelling and Simulation (M&S) for systems analysis and decision making. OR/MS M&S is used in a wide range of areas including commerce, healthcare, manufacturing and logistics and covers a range of techniques from System Dynamics (SD) to Discrete Event Simulation (DES) and, more recently, Agent-Based Simulation (ABS) These techniques are supported by simulation software packages offering complete simulation environments, such as Visual Interactive Modelling Systems (VIMS) that support all (or most) aspects of a simulation study. More recently Fujimoto [12] notes the challenge of making DS more accessible and the complexity of creating these applications This limited adoption is further supported by a survey conducted by Fakhimi and Probert [11] that reviewed the academic literature of OR/MS techniques applied in the UK healthcare sector. It must be noted that there may be other non-defence DS success stories developed in industry that have not been reported in primary or secondary literature
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