An extensible visual environment for construction and analysis of hierarchically-structured models of resource contention systems

The development of models for evaluating the performance of resource contention systems, such as manufacturing systems, computer systems, and communication networks, is often a difficult and complex task. This modeling effort can be dramatically reduced by the use of appropriate software tools. The Research Queueing Package Modeling Environment (RESQME) provides a graphical environment for constructing, solving, and analyzing the results of extended queueing network models of resource contention systems. It supports a rich underlying modeling paradigm previously developed in the Research Queueing Package and provides a single integrated graphical interface throughout all tasks of the modeling lifecycle. In this paper the authors present a brief overview of RESQME and then focus on two of its most important features: the construction and analysis of hierarchically-structured models and the ability to extend and customize the RESQME environment for domain-specific modeling via the use of user-defined modeling elements. A manufacturing model is developed in order to illustrate these capabilities.