AN INTEGRATED SIMULATION-MODEL DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT FOR SLAM-II USING OBJECT-ORIENTED PARADIGM

An integrated simulation model development environment was implemented to assist the modeler by automating certain activities of simulation modeling. The system included interactive model definition, experiment al design, automatic simulation program generation in SLAM II. Object- oriented paradigm at software development stage was extensively used t o conceptualize the structure, and rules of the SLAM II language in or der to generate efficient, and modular program code. The present syste m targeted modeling of various probabilistic inventory control system problems. The remarkable advantages of the system were rapid model dev elopment time, and achieving reliable program code without requiring a ny knowledge in SLAM II. object-oriented programming was very promisin g, and effective programming paradigm in system development cycle. At the final stage, response surface methodology (RSM) in conjunction wit h the steepest-ascent method was used to find the optimum inventory po licy minimizing the average cost per unit of time based on simulation output. Comparing RSM results to those of the deterministic relaxation of the probabilistic inventory model demonstrated that RSM could be a n efficient tool for optimization in simulation.