Events Step by Step

Model Design

Identification of Relevant Entities

The event-oriented modelling style focuses on the set of all transformations of all relevant entities at specified points in time. Instead of grouping chains of events into process descriptions, we cluster events based on their time of occurrence and model a system's behaviour in terms of a sequence of events.

To build an event-based model, we must identify all relevant objects and their properties. In contrast to a process-oriented viewpoint, however, a model designer must take a "bird's eye view", from which they describe all states, events, and transformations of entities together with all interactions. All transformations, which are caused by events involving the same entities at the same times, can be grouped into an event class of a specified type. Activities are not modelled directly. Rather they are implied by scheduling an event for the point in simulation time they will be finished.

The first step in designing our model of the truck loading zone of a container terminal is to identify the relevant entities. So now it's your turn: Try to find out which types of entities there are and write them down. You may revisit the model description to do this, if you need.