Document Type

Theses, Ph.D

Rights

Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence

Disciplines

2. ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

Publication Details

Successfully submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) to the Univesity of Limerick, 2005

Abstract

This thesis details the development of a process modelling technique to aid a simulation model developer during the requirements gathering and conceptual modelling phases of a simulation project.

There are a number of process modelling techniques available that are capable of being used during such phases of a simulation project, however there is currently a lack of process modelling techniques developed specifically to aid a simulation model developer in capturing, representing and communicating information and systems issues to persons involved in the operation of discrete systems under investigation.

A detailed review of the literature related to techniques capable of supporting the pre-simulation phases of a simulation project is presented. The main conclusion of this review is that there is a specific lack of support available to aid a simulation model developer in the pre-coding phases of a simulation project. Currently there are no process modelling techniques available that specifically support the pre-simulation phases of a discrete event simulation project.

To attempt to overcome this shortfall the thesis discusses the development of a process modelling technique specifically developed to support the pre-simulation phases of a simulation project. Objectives in the development of this technique were to develop a technique that:

1. Is capable of capturing a detailed description of a Discrete Event System;

2. Has a low modelling burden and therefore is capable of being used by non specialists;

3. Presents modelling information at a high semantic level so that manufacturing personnel can rationalise with it;

4. Has good visualisation capabilities.

The technique developed is called Simulation Activity Diagrams (SADs). To demonstrate the ability of the SAD technique to model discrete event information a prototype process modelling tool, Process Modelling for Simulation (PMS) was developed. An evaluation of the SAD technique is then presented through of a number of real and conceptual discrete event systems used to examine the techniques ability to accurately model information along with its ease of use and modelling accuracy. The thesis concludes that more research is required in validating and developing SADs and in developing other techniques in the pre-simulation area.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21427/D71R1G

Funder

simulation, process modelling, system

Download


Share

COinS