Effective simulation of earth moving projects

In the context of earth-moving (EM) projects, process-based simulation platforms have demonstrated their effectiveness in predicting project durations, costs, and resource requirements. However, these simulators are developed by simulation expert using advanced programming techniques. Therefore, understanding the details of these models or enhancing them to fit a particular purpose can be a daunting task. This paper presents Earth-Sim, an EM template developed using the SimFC simulation platform. Earth-Sim mimics the behaviors found in an earlier version of the SIMPHONY EMS template. SIMPHONY EMS was chosen because a) it is a well-recognized template which models all activities within the EM process; and b) it has been validated against data obtained from construction job-sites. This paper explains how Earth-Sim was developed solely using the common elements found in SimFC without any programming. Furthermore, the results obtained from Earth-Sim are compared against results from SIMPHONY EMS to illustrate the validity of the outputs.

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