Jr. Warren et al., EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF A SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT FOR INFORMATION-SYSTEMS DESIGN, The Journal of systems and software, 32(1), 1996, pp. 3-20
Citations number
34
Categorie Soggetti
System Science","Computer Science Theory & Methods","Computer Science Software Graphycs Programming
This article presents an experiment assessing the decision support val
ue of a simulation environment for the information systems (IS) design
process. We have implemented a prototype simulation environment that
uses data flow diagrams (DFDs) augmented with the performance rates of
system components to specify the structure and dynamics of IS designs
. The DFD-based representation is automatically mapped to a stochastic
queuing network simulation. Knowledge-based help supports formulation
of simulation run parameters and interpretation of output. We measure
the prototype's impact on system dynamics assessment via the accuracy
of IS professionals' responses to questions about the dynamics of fou
r IS cases. The prototype's simulation capability has a significant po
sitive effect on accuracy scores for questions involving waiting times
, system times, and queue lengths of jobs or customers. Subjects choos
ing to conduct more and longer simulation runs provide significantly m
ore accurate assessments than less-active users of simulation. The fin
dings suggest that IS professionals can make use of simulation technol
ogy within a compact time frame if the proper supports are provided; o
n-line help or other methods should be used to encourage users to cond
uct sufficiently long simulation runs; and embedding the prototype's c
apabilities in a computer-aided software engineering workbench would r
esult in better designed information systems.