Teaching discrete-event simulation to business students

We first discuss why teaching discrete-event simulation is important at a business school, stressing three different main aspects: the importance of physical flows and of production economics; the importance of the relationship between physical flows and financial flows and the importance of stochastic dynamic simulation for financial planning. Against the specific background of business students, we discuss what is the most suitable software for teaching business students discrete-event simulation and what led us to develop a specific easy-to-learn and easy-to-use version of GPSS, called micro-GPSS. We finally discuss the courses at the Stockholm School of Economics, where discrete-event simulation with micro-GPSS is taught, in particular in a course in corporate financial planning. Here this type of simulation is applied to corporate modelling in an innovative fashion.