Simulation fundamentals

This paper provides an introduction to simulation fundamentals via the Monte Carlo and next-event approaches to simulation, supported by two representative programs from the software suite written specifically for the Winter Simulation Conference´s Simulation 101 workshop. The simulation libraries and functions associated with workshop are written using the R statistical language. R is suitable for an introduction to simulation because of its easy learning curve and its wide range of statistical procedures, built-in functions, and graphics capabilities. This paper begins with general instructions for downloading, compiling, and executing the software. This is followed by explanations of the Monte Carlo and next-event approaches, using two examples: craps() uses Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the probability of winning the dice game Craps, and ssq3() uses a next-event approach to estimate several measures of performance associated with a single-server queue.