1404 Multi-agent service flow simulation using Scene Transition Nets(STN)

A new academic field, “service engineering” has emerged; it involves active investigation for increasing the productivities of service industries. However, there are only a few effective tools for the simulation and evaluation of complex services that have been designed using concepts from the field of service engineering. To overcome this shortcoming, the authors propose a multi-agent service flow simulation method using scene transition nets (STNs) that is a very useful graphical modeling and simulation method for application to discrete-continuous hybrid systems. This method treats services as complicated multi-agent and hybrid systems similar to manufacturing systems. To obtain realistic values of customer satisfaction, the authors input satisfaction-attribute value (S-AV) functions, which are often used in service engineering in service flow models using STN. This method visualizes discrete flows of services and temporal changes in the values of customer satisfaction and various other variables of service models. The authors present the results of the simulation of an online DVD rental service involving multiple agents to show the effectiveness of the proposed method that uses an STN GUI simulator developed by them.

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Multi-agent service flow simulation using scene transition nets based on service engineering

2010 7th International Conference on Service Systems and Service Management ◽

10.1109/icsssm.2010.5530192 ◽

2010 ◽

Author(s):

Takeshi Tateyamai ◽

Satoshi Mikoshiba ◽

Yoshiki Shimomura ◽

Seiichi Kawata

Keyword(s):

Flow Simulation ◽

Service Flow ◽

Service Engineering ◽

Multi Agent

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A Multi-Aspect Modeling Method for Service Flow Simulation Using Scene Transition Nets (STNs)

Volume 5: 6th International Conference on Micro- and Nanosystems; 17th Design for Manufacturing and the Life Cycle Conference ◽

10.1115/detc2012-71420 ◽

2012 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Takeshi Tateyama ◽

Satoshi Mikoshiba ◽

Koji Kimita ◽

Kentaro Watanabe ◽

Ryosuke Chiba ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Modeling And Simulation ◽

Flow Simulation ◽

Simulation Method ◽

Modeling Method ◽

Nursing Service ◽

Service Flow ◽

Academic Field ◽

Service Engineering ◽

Field Service ◽

Graphic Modeling

Recently, a new academic field, “service engineering” has been very actively investigated. However, there are few effective methods and tools to simulate and evaluate services designed based on the concept of service engineering. In the past, the authors proposed a service flow simulation method using scene transition nets (STN) which is a graphic modeling and simulation method for discrete-continuous hybrid systems. However, this method does not consider how to model and simulate complex service flows including multiple layered, parallel, and interrupted structures and it is difficult to construct STN models of such complex systems using the existing STN concepts. In this paper, the authors propose a new STN modeling method using “multi-aspect STN modeling “ concepts in order to provide easy methods for modeling of such complex services. The experimental results for the modeling and simulation of a nursing service demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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