The Object Flow Model for Data-Based Simulation

This paper introduces the notion of data-based simulation to describe simulations where the basic entities and timing for the simulation are provided by explicitly captured data, e.g., in a database. This is in contrast to traditional simulation where entities are usually generated when needed, according to the appropriate distributions. This paper also introduces the Object Flow Model, where a single model can serve as the basis for the application software, for dam-based simulation, and for traditional simulation. The Object Flow Model uses an object-oriented database to describe entities and methods for manipulating entities and provides a visual formalism called the Object Flow Diagram (based on network-based process-oriented discrete event simulation languages), to describe the dynamic processing of an application. A data-based simulator for the Object Flow Model has been implemented for an apparel manufacturing shop floor based on data captured from a real-time payroll system to provide detailed, near-term advice for the shop floor manager.