The role of DES in generating insights_third submition final.pdf (713.99 kB)
An experimental investigation into the role of simulation models in generating insights
journal contribution
posted on 2015-10-29, 15:53 authored by Anastasia Gogi, Antuela Tako, Stewart RobinsonIt is often claimed that discrete-event simulation (DES) models are useful for generating insights. There is, however, almost no empirical evidence to support this claim. To address this issue we perform an experimental study which investigates the role of DES, specifically the simulation animation and statistical results, in generating insight (an ‘Aha!’ moment). Undergraduate students were placed in three separate groups and given a task to solve using a model with only animation, a model with only statistical results, or using no model at all. The task was based around the UK’s NHS111 telephone service for non-emergency health care. Performance was measured based on whether participants solved the task with insight, the time taken to achieve insight and the participants’ problem-solving patterns. The results show that there is some association between insight generation and the use of a simulation model, particularly the use of the statistical results generated from the model. While there is no evidence that insights were generated more frequently from statistical results than the use of animation, the participants using the statistical results generated insights more rapidly.
Funding
The authors acknowledge the financial support and advisory input of SIMUL8 Corporation.
History
School
- Business and Economics
Department
- Business
Published in
European Journal of Operational ResearchVolume
249Issue
3Pages
931 - 944Citation
ROBINSON, S., GOGI, A. and TAKO, A.A., 2016. An experimental investigation into the role of simulation models in generating insights. European Journal of Operational Research, 249(3), pp.931-944.Publisher
© Elsevier and Association of European Operational Research SocietiesVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Acceptance date
2015-09-22Publication date
2015-10-21Copyright date
2015Notes
This paper was accepted for publication in the journal European Journal of Operational Research and the definitive published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2015.09.042ISSN
0377-2217Publisher version
Language
- en