Production and Logistics companies usually operate multiple sites at different locations. The planning departments hold the responsibility of optimizing the capacity usage of each of the sites. Discrete-event simulation is one of the most important tools that are being used for the evaluation of optimization strategies.

Such simulation models are built specifically for each site. Each simulation model is then used independently of each other, addressing optimization questions/concerns separately. However, to enable global capacity optimization across multiple sites, these simulation models have to be merged to form one large simulation model. This solution is not feasible due to a large memory requirement and lengthy simulation execution time.

To resolve this problem, D-SIMLAB Technologies is offering the technology for interoperation in the form of a software solution and consultation service. The technology allows independent simulation models to be plugged together through an interoperation middleware, called D-SIMFed. Each simulation model would be able to execute at separate computers concurrently, eliminating the memory and execution time constraint.

Figure below shows the software architecture of D-SIMFed with functionalities of each modules summarized:

• Simulation model & data source libraries: the model that mimics the business processes and operations, including the associated data [not part of our product]. This can be constructed on any commercial off-the-shelf simulation packages or D-SIMLAB solutions such as D-SIMCON.
• Adapter: the adapter functions as an interface between the interoperation technology and simulation tool. A different adapter would need to be created for different simulation packages. At this stage, we have adapters for some commercial simulation packages available and continuously developing more.
• Shared State Management Middleware: a module to ensure that simulation execution speed does not suffer when simulation components share data. It maintains history and future list of data to loosen simulation synchronization.
• Distributed Simulation Manager: a module to manage distributed simulation execution, which includes simulation component management, communication management, data management, and synchronization management.
• High Level Architecture – Runtime Infrastructure: an IEEE standard for distributed simulation. This standard has been widely adopted in the defence industry [not part of our product].