A structured approach to rapid simulation model development.

This thesis presents a new methodology to accelerate the simulation model development process. Three research strategies were adopted during the research namely; case study, questionnaire survey and literature survey. Investigations done during the research revealed that among the stages within a simulation project life cycle the model development phase is the longest. Results of the case study research and literature review revealed that two major reasons for the lengthiness are the lack of understanding of the system to be simulated between the modeller and the user, and difficulty in programming. Many researchers have tried to accelerate the process mainly by improving the programming efficiency. However it is important to develop a model which represents the actual system to be simulated. Existing approaches to accelerating the simulation model development process do not guarantee that the model developed in a shorter time is the model which represents the actual physical system. Therefore there is a need for a new methodology to develop a model at a shorter time while ensuring that it represents the actual system.A simulation model is a piece of software. Therefore, the new methodology was developed by adopting Rapid Application Development approach of software development which emphasises the active user involvement. There are three components of the proposed methodology; Joint Application Development (JAD) team, a CASE tool to develop the simulation software independent conceptual model of the system, and a translator programme to convert the developed conceptual model into the computer simulation model. The proposed mythology accelerates the model development process not only by improving the effectiveness of the process, i.e. development of the model required by the user once but also the efficiency of the process, i.e. development of the model at a shorter time by automating the model development process