Component based simulation modeling from neutral component libraries

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have proposed the development of libraries of formal, neutral models of simulation components. The availability of such libraries would simplify the generation of simulation models, enable reuse of existing models construction of complicated models from simpler ones, and speed Internet-based simulation services. The result would be a dramatic increase in the use of simulation for decision-making and control in manufacturing. In this paper, we describe a collection of formal, neutral models for a discrete-event simulation of the flow of jobs through a job shop, where the simulation executes jobs based on a pre-provided schedule. We then derive a database structure from these formal models and discuss the population of that database with the data entries for a sample job shop. We then examine the translators we developed to go from the neutral representation of the simulation components to the representation required by Arena. Finally, we compare this routing aspect of translator to the routing aspects of a translator we built for ProModel.