Simio: A new simulation system based on intelligent objects

Over the 50 year history of discrete event simulation the growth in applications has been facilitated by some key advances in modeling that have simplified the process of building, running, analyzing, and viewing models. Three important advances have been: the modeling paradigm shift from an event to a process orientation, the shift from programming to graphical model building, and the emergence of 2D/3D animation for analyzing and viewing model execution. These key advances were made 25 years ago and provided the foundation for the current set of modeling tools that are in wide use today. The past 25 years has been a period of evolutionary improvements with no significant advances in the core approach to modeling. The tools that are in use today are really just refined versions of what existed 25 years ago. This paper describes a new modeling system - Simiotrade - that is a departure from the design of existing modeling tools with the aim of improving the activity of model building. Simio is designed to simplify model building by promoting a modeling paradigm shift from the process orientation to an object orientation.