Activity based simulation - A modeling tool for new teaching-learning strategies

Teaching and learning Discrete Event Simulation (DES) at universities within the context of undergraduate studies in industrial and engineering management is not thoroughly covered in the literature. In fact, most strategies tend to solely address commercial tools, resulting on too much focus on syntax, semantics and getting used to the interface of a particular tool, rather than on simulation fundamental concepts. In the light of this, this paper proposes a tool, which allows students and professors to use Activity Cycle Diagrams (ACDs) to model systems with a comprehensive approach, focusing on the fundamental elements of simulation, allowing thereafter the corresponding simulation code to be extracted and experiments to be conducted. The tool is described and its applicability is demonstrated in some example cases. The effort needed to develop ACDs requires a complete understanding of the real system and simultaneously favours a full comprehension of the simulation fundamental elements, hence portraying an adequate teaching and learning strategy to be pondered.