A SPECIFICATION LANGUAGE TO ASSIST IN ANALYSIS OF DISCRETE EVENT SIMULATION MODELS

Overstreet, C. Michael and Nance, Richard E. (1983) A SPECIFICATION LANGUAGE TO ASSIST IN ANALYSIS OF DISCRETE EVENT SIMULATION MODELS. Technical Report CS83026-R, Computer Science, Virginia Tech.

Abstract

The use of effective development environments for discrete event simulation models should reduce development costs and improve model performance. A model specification language to be used in a model development environment is defined. This approach is intended to reduce modeli ng costs by interposing an intermediate form between a conceptual model (the model as it exists in the mind of the modeler) and an executable representation of that model. As a model specification is being constructed, the incomplete specification can be analyzed to detect some types of errors and to provide some types of model documentation. The primitives to be used in this specification language, called a Condition Specification, are carefully defined. A specification for the classical patrolling repairman model is used as an example to illustrate this language. Some types of diagnostics which are possible based on such a representation are summarized, as well as some model specification properties which are untestable.