Making sure you tackle the right problem: Linking hard and soft methods in simulation practice

As well as knowledge of computing, statistics and modelling, a successful simulation analyst needs to develop ways to understand the important features of an application domain. The last two decades have seen the increasing use of ´soft´ approaches to help analysts structure the problems they are asked to tackle. The idea is to help ensure that the right problem is tackled. The complementary use of these problem structuring approaches with the technical side of computer simulation offers the prospect of better simulation practice. This advanced tutorial introduces some of these structuring approaches and discusses how they can be used in simulation projects, paying attention to the different ways in which simulation models are used.