Developing industrial strength simulation models using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)

Since 1984 the author has been developing simulation models that use input data from spreadsheets. These original applications used a standalone Basic program to convert Lotus 123(R) data into Siman Experiment Frames. While this process has evolved overtime, it did not reach a truly viable level until Arena(R) 3.0 introduced Visual Basic(R) for Applications (VBA) by Microsoft(R). This advanced tutorial demonstrates the basic concepts developed by the author to transfer data between Excel(R) and Arena. The same techniques can be used to communicate simulation data with a wide range of VBA supported tools, such as Access(R), AutoCAD(R) and Visio(R). Arena permits the model developer to use VBA as the model file is loaded, executed, or terminated or as entities flow through the Arena model modules. The article focuses on the design of Excel workbooks for simulation applications and the transfer of data to/from Arena using VBA.