MACRO REQUIREMENT WITHIN A SIMULATION INTERFACE

The use of simulation has traditionally required a great deal of exper tise. Simulation Interfaces to General Purpose Simulation Languages ma de simulation easier to use. However, for successfully building simula tion models, modelling expertise is still required. Macros have been p roposed as a tool within Simulation InterfaCes which simplify the buil ding of models. A macro in this context should be seen as a group of S imulation Language statements with a data interface to the user. The q uestions to be answered were: ''What should a macro do and how should it be implemented? ''The first objective of the work was to specify th e macro functionality more tightly and then develop some macros. The w ide range of macro applications allows categorising. An attempt was ma de to classify the different types of macros in a hierarchical structu re. Implementation of macros in SIMAN(R) [1], showed difficulties such as nesting, attribute sharing, and code connectivity. To make data in put for complete models less laborious, generic data interfaces were p roposed. A simple model of a manufacturing cell is discussed, to show some of the above mentioned aspects. It became clear that macros could considerably speed up model building. However, bigger macros could re duce modelling flexibility to some extent.