HOW TO TEST YOUR MODELS MORE EFFECTIVELY: APPLYING AGILE AND AUTOMATED TECHNIQUES TO SIMULATION TESTING

In the industrial engineering community, it’s a well-known adage that focusing on process can help achieve better results. In this second of a series of papers, we’ll focus on the process of simulation testing and outline how improving your testing process can lead to better results for your projects. We’ll consider model building as a software development exercise, and discuss how best practices from the broader software testing community can be applied for process improvement. In particu-lar, we’ll explore various approaches to automated testing and their applicability toward simulation projects, based on recent explorations in our own projects. Part 1 of our series introduced the “milestones ” approach to simulation development – based on the popular “agile software ” philosophy and our own experiences in real-world simulation consulting practice. This time, we’ll discuss how thinking agile can help you become a more effective tester, and help ensure the quality of your mod-els.