Model generation issues in a simulation support environment

The Simulation Model Development Environments (SMDE) project has been developing an environment that can be characterized as a simulation support environment or a computer-aided simulation engineering environment. The SMDE project has addressed the problem of prototyping a domain-independent discrete-event simulation support environment to provide a comprehensive and integrated collection of computer-based tools to (1) offer cost-effective, integrated and automated support of model development throughout the entire model life cycle; (2) improve the model quality by assisting in the quality assurance of the model; (3) significantly increase the efficiency and productivity of the project teams; and (4) substantially decrease the model development time. Prototyping techniques have been used to develop the prototypes of SMDE tools on a Sun 3/160 workstation. The software tools of the environment are briefly described. Issues in developing the Model Generator, the tool with which a modeler creates a simulation model specification under a conceptual framework, are presented.<>