Automated database and schema-based data interchange for modeling and simulation

Creating a simulation of a large enterprise system by manually coding all the details into a simulator tool is not just time consuming, but yields a system that is difficult to maintain. By separating the model-configuration data from the models, a higher level of automation can be achieved, and enhance the usefulness of the simulation. The underlying data can be manipulated by the subject matter experts, and then transformed into the appropriate structure for simulator use. This paper describes a method that automatically configures a simulation using external data that interfaces to generic processing flow. The models and the simulation were co-designed along with the interchange data representation to enable generic models to be configured under software sequenced by a workflow system. This allowed model reuse, and automatic configuration changes, in support of optimization. We also describe the application of this technique to the simulation of an enterprise, student-training system.