Stimulating good simulation

Visual Interactive Simulation has reached the stage where its use is becoming commonplace in manufacturing and widespread in other sectors. Current software makes model building relatively straightforward, but little attention has so far been given to producing tools to assist in experimentation beyond automatic run replication and report generation. A series of interviews with selected experts and users suggests that many simulation practitioners just rely on gut feel and rule of thumb in the choice of warm-up times, run lengths and numbers of replications. This article argues that it is time for a simple methodology of experimentation to be developed with real users in mind.