User interface to automate the collection and processing of data for discrete event simulation projects

Discrete Event Simulation (DES) is a powerful tool of modeling and analysis used in different disciplines. DES projects rely heavily on data in order to compute different parameters that drive the simulations. DES is usually performed on specialized DES software, which performs the simulations but does not prepare the data to set up the simulations. Professionals and practitioners who use DES agree that the preparation of data for DES projects is a highly manual process and is extremely time consuming in relationship to the entire duration of DES projects. On average 31% of DES projects' time is devoted to input data management. This paper presents an innovative user interface, which collects and processes data for DES projects in an automated manner, producing results in real-time in response to intuitive user inputs. The proposed interface intends to address the manual data collection and processing (MDCAP) problem prevalent in DES projects.