Research-Agenda For Process Simulation Dashboards

The European Conference on Modelling and Simulation is a prominent but not the only conference showing possibilities and relevance of simulation. Meanwhile, it is an important field of research worldwide and current discussions about the industry of the future and especially the idea of digital twins for the simulation of forecasts in parallel to an existing reality increase its importance. All these efforts led to highly elaborated simulation modeling methods and tools that can be applied to different fields from air traffic management to zoo building. However, based on conference participations, literature research, and conversations with other researchers and practitioners, we observe that simulations are by far not being used as often as possible in day-to-day business. And if they are used, typically individual software solutions are developed that can hardly be transferred to other applications. So, how can we reduce the barriers for using simulation? Any simulation comes along with a profound domain knowledge, a modeling method, a tool for the definition and simulation of models, and the visualization of the simulation results. Different roles conduct these tasks: Domain experts deliver the domain specific knowledge and – as is the case for further members of staff – must be able to interpret the simulation results. Modeling and visualization experts develop the simulations but also deliver a proper presentation for the domain experts, probably without having a deeper understanding of these results. A decision on whether a simulation is conducted at all is made by management, possibly together with the information systems department. The latter roles need information concerning the benefits both in advance as well as in retrospect. Since we mainly work in the field of process modeling and simulation with the aid of Petri nets for production and logistics, the above made considerations encouraged further studies on the usage of simulation with a special focus on dashboard visualization of the simulation results in this field. A holistic approach includes the process of simulation development and use. The research agenda for which a grant could be won is explained within this paper and may animate other researchers to participate.