Automatic simulation program synthesis using a knowledge-based approach

This paper describes research and development in automatic simulation program synthesis using a knowledge-based approach. Simulation analysis can be a very important tool for people responsible for critical resource management in large organisations. Unfortunately, these management decisions must often be made quickly and on a daily basis. There may not be enough time to involve simulation software developers. The main objective of our system is to make simulation easily accessible to non-technical management-level people who might not have a background in computer programming or simulation theory. Our knowledge-based simulation system automatically constructs a SIMAN simulation program through an object-oriented graphic user interface and a knowledge-base of domain-specific heuristics implemented in OPS5. The system then executes the simulation program and displays the results as animated graphics. Our research was performed in the domain of airport check-in counter scheduling. This paper describes an overview of the system design and provides examples of the results produced by our knowledge-based simulator. © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.