Discrete event simulation (DES) approach as a way to validate technological change decisions - an overview of selected different paradigms levels tools application strengths and weaknesses

Abstract

The simulation approach as a tool is attractive in different ways and in many subjects or domains like education, research, and business. As a tool, they always need consideration to choose it or leave it behind, because of modeling and simulation approach advantages and possible disadvantages. Within positive decision, there is reached a controversial point – what tool to choose for the model design process and later simulation. The field of tools in which to choose what to use for odeling discrete events is wide, as there are not only different tools but also different levels of specialization of these tools. The article goes through practical comparison and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the most popular software tools from each of those levels. Several basic levels are distinguished: the most accessible as spreadsheets, general-purpose programming languages and their specialized libraries, special modeling and simulation software, and technical-level emulation software. The study revealed that every software group has its own almost clear winner in popularity or application aspect and from a model design and simulation point of view software gets more pros than cons when software specialization grows but within general programing language usage case there are more later integration capabilities.