| Simulation is very popular as an analysis tool for complex systems. A new paradigm shift towards object oriented simulations is hoping to make simulations even more powerful and accessible. However, in order for those not familiar with object oriented techniques to join this shift, methods must be developed for them to build object oriented simulations, until they acquire an understanding of this programming paradigm. This is an attempt to develop a procedure for just such novice model builders. This thesis begins with some background on object oriented paradigm concepts. It then provides an overview of several different object oriented analysis techniques and attempts to define the common steps of these approaches. Several different commercial object-oriented simulation software are described, with an in depth description of the software selected, Silk, a java based simulation software. The general object oriented analysis approach is then adapted for simulation purposes, resulting in a proposed object oriented analysis technique for developing simulations, and an example is given. Object oriented analysis techniques such as use-case modeling and noun extraction are used to identify potential objects in a discrete manufacturing system to be simulated. These objects are then mapped to existing object classes in the Silk software for final model building. |
