What-if analysis in computer-simulation models – a comparative survey with some extensions

The simulation models are often subject to errors caused by the estimated parameters(s) of underlying input distribution function. ‘What-if’ analysis is needed to establish confidence with respect to small changes in the parameters of the input distributions. However, traditional ‘what-if’ analysis requires a separate simulation run for each input value. Four different methods for estimating performance function for several scenarios using extrapolation/interpolation are presented. By simulating a simple reliability model a comparative experimental study on the efficiency of these methods is provided.