Visualization of the Process Interaction Worldview in Discrete Event Simulation

A process interaction model is a specific form of modeling paradigm representing the interactions involved in an entity moving through some specific process. While there exist many ways of viewing and implementing process interaction models and diagrams, there does not exist a visualization method to denote scheduling and execution of events during runtime of a simulation. During runtime, the scheduling of events, execution of events, and interactions between processes are all hidden and unobservable throughout the course of the simulation. This lack of knowledge about the underlying processes in action, as well as the events that affect the system state, often hinders the understanding of the model at hand. This creates problems in teaching and introducing discrete event simulation to students because there is no visual component of the program that represents the underlying processes occurring during runtime. The authors propose a visualization approach to displaying the scheduling and execution of events in process interaction models. This visualization approach highlights event scheduling and execution, as well as interactions between processes. The authors’ methodology for this approach is focused on building upon examples of process interaction models by highlighting triggers, event scheduling, and event execution during process interaction simulations. The authors found that the development of this visualization method is very useful for highlighting key factors in process interaction simulations during runtime.