WITNESS: Unlocking the power of visual interactive simulation

This paper describes WITNESS, a visual interactive simulation software package designed to analyse a wide variety of manufacturing systems. Within WITNESS a simulation model is constructed from objects which directly represent the components of real life systems, rather than by an abstract programming language. The modelling allows these objects to be defined, displayed and changed interactively. The advantages of this approach are that model development time is significant reduced and that it allows problem holders to participate in this development process thereby gaining deeper insights into their problems.