AGENT-BASED CONCEPTUAL MODEL REPRESENTATION USING BPMN

2008

This study focuses on the development of a conceptual simulation modeling tool that can be used to structure a domain specific simulation environment. The issues in Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering such as object-oriented concepts and knowledge representations are addressed to identify and analyze modeling frameworks and patterns of a specific problem domain. Thus, its structural and behavioral characteristics can be conceptualized and described in terms of simulation architecture and context. Moreover, symbols, notations, and diagrams are developed as a communication tool that creates a blueprint to be seen and recognized by both domain experts and simulation developers, which leads to the effectiveness and efficiency in the simulation development of any specific domains.

2016

This paper shows how an engineer can use Gaia formulas for modeling the dynamic behavior of an agent role and then transform the formulas to a process model compliant to the modern Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). The Agent Systems Engineering Methodology (ASEME) employs this text to model (T2M) transformation for being able to simulate the system models even after just the analysis phase. A number of tools allow for simulating process models, even optimizing them. Thus, a number of the system’s (non-functional) requirements can be evaluated before even entering the design phase. This helps an engineer to build a better system capturing its requirements but also a project manager to select the appropriate resources for his project’s development based on the performance of the technologies proposed in an analysis phase iteration. Our work is demonstrated and evaluated through a real world case study. 1.

This paper shows how an engineer can use Gaia formulas for modeling the dynamic behavior of an agent role and then transform the formulas to a process model compliant to the modern Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). The Agent Systems Engineering Methodology (ASEME) employs this text to model (T2M) transformation for being able to simulate the system models even after just the analysis phase. A number of tools allow for simulating process models, even optimizing them. Thus, a number of the system's (non-functional) requirements can be evaluated before even entering the design phase. This helps an engineer to build a better system capturing its requirements but also a project manager to select the appropriate resources for his project's development based on the performance of the technologies proposed in an analysis phase iteration. Our work is demonstrated and evaluated through a real world case study.

Proceedings of the 8th …, 2010

2013 Winter Simulations Conference (WSC), 2013

This paper describes a diagramming methodology, referred to as an Object Flow Diagram (OFD), that is intended to be a key component in the conceptual design of a discrete-event simulation model. It provides an effective means for representing salient system elements and their relationships. It draws upon other popular system diagramming methods, such as IDEF0 and IDEF3, to bring the relevant aspects of these tools to the simulation modeler. It is intended to be easy to apply, with few symbols and constructs, yet robust and comprehensive enough to represent a wide variety of systems. It is simulation software neutral and thus provides a basis for model development in any language. A simple example is used to illustrate the approach. The methodology has been used in industry projects and in simulation courses.

We investigate the question if BPMN can be used for simulation modeling by evaluating it against ABDESO, a foundational ontology for agent- based discrete event simulation. Since a simulation model is intended to capture a real-world system, BPMN, if used as the modeling language for making the simulation model, should have a “real-world semantics” based on a founda- tional ontology for agent-based discrete event simulation.

Proceedings of the 2006 Winter Simulation Conference, 2006

The Discrete Event Simulation (DES) process interaction world view describes models that focus on simulated entities that progress through a series of temporally related activities. DES formalisms and vendor approaches for representing DES models serve as a basis for developing an open neutral representation of models that can be encoded into ontologies. This paper reviews world views, formal foundations, and ontologies as background. The process for creating ontologies for the process interaction DES domain is discussed. Next an approach to ontology based simulation model representation is presented and last conclusions and recommendations for future work are provided.

2020

The current paradigm of a business process model is that it is a representation of a sequence of tasks that act upon some data input, to produce an output, aiming the production of a new service or product to be delivered from a producer to a customer. Although this is a valid way of thinking, it neglects to consider in enough detail the influence of some phenomenon on inputs, e.g. human behaviour, communication, social interactions, the organisational culture which can have a significant effect on the output delivered by a business process. As the dynamics of these phenomena are non-linear, they can be interpreted as a complex system. This holistic way of thinking about business processes opens the doors to the possibility of combining different simulation methods to model different aspects that influence a process. A BPMN engine and an agent-based simulation (ABS) engine are chosen to serve the basis of our framework. In its conception, we not only consider the technical aspects of the framework but also delve into exploring its management and organizational dimensions, with the intent of facilitating its adoption in enterprises, as a tool to support decision support systems. We analyse how accurate the simulation results can be when using these two tools as well as what considerations need to be considered within organizations.

Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 2014

In order to simulate business process models, either an additional mapping schema is developed or the models are translated into other diagrams that can be used as a conceptual model of simulation. However, most existing methods require manual transformation, and they have made troublesome and time consuming when the business process models are complex. Thus, the application of such translation method is limited. In this research, we conducted a Model Driven Framework base transformation to semi-automatically transform DEMO aspect models into DEVS executable model. Contribution of this research could be concluded as: (1) It makes DEMO model "really executable" and becomes more helpful in BPR; (2) It provides a suitable and well supported formalism and semantics for conceptual model for discrete event related enterprise simulation; (3) It helps developer semi-automatically generate a simulation model which provide better support for enterprise simulation development; (4) DEMO based DEVS definition could be implemented in other simulation platform for better practice.