Discrete-event simulation is alive and kicking!

Abstract

At the 2010 OR Society Simulation Workshop, there was a lively panel discussion entitled ‘Discrete-event simulation is dead, long live agent-based simulation!’, which was subsequently written up as a position paper for the Journal of Simulation (Siebers et al, 2010). This paper continues that discussion and, to quote Mark Twain, argues that rumours of the death of discrete-event simulation (DES) are greatly exaggerated. There has undoubtedly been a recent surge of interest within the mainstream OR community in the use of agent-based modeling, but this paper suggests that many of the cited benefits of agent-based simulation (ABS) can be achieved through the use of a traditional DES approach. These arguments are illustrated by several examples where DES has been used successfully to tackle ‘ABS-type’ problems.