Systems simulation is becoming increasingly popular as a decision support tool in Operations Research and Management Science. This can be accounted to the recent increase in data availability and improvements of speed in computer hardware. Systems simulation helps to better understand the processes currently in place and shows the consequences of changes to these processes over time. Besides its standard application of studying the operations of a system it has more recently also gained attention as a useful tool for studying the behaviour of people in human centred service systems.
Three broad simulation paradigms exist: system dynamics, discrete event, and agent-based. This module will explain each of them in detail so that students will be competent in choosing and implementing the right method for their particular problem. Students will also learn the general principles and techniques used in modelling and simulation and will gain some practical experience in how to design and implement their own simulation models (which requires some programming).
Please Note: An updated version of slides/models can be found here [
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