ABSTRACT
It is difficult to develop a simulation model in the early phase of system development since it requires a high-level knowledge of the following three aspects: modeling techniques, the system domain, and the model execution paradigms. The model development platform may be completely different from the model execution platform, but most of the time both are treated as one. The developed model is so much customized to the problem at hand that it impedes extensibility on the said aspects. It becomes necessary to answer questions about properties (most notably behavior) of the whole system. It requires intensive cooperation among domain experts and modeling experts as both demand totally different expertise. The entire systems M&S process starts with eliciting system requirements and ultimately translating them into an executable modeling code. The simple act of executing the model is termed as simulation. In addition, the Department of Defense (DoD) has strongly recommended applying M&S techniques to validate the requirements during the system development (Department of Defense, 2006). We need a practical and efficient way of applying M&S to the development of systems under design in early phases of system development. Most importantly, we must separate the art of modeling with the model platform so that the subject experts could focus on the model abstraction rather than the modeling platform. In other words, a platform-independent model (PIM) is the preferred way that would aid the subject-matter expert (SME) to participate in the modeling process directly.
