Facilitating the Analysis of a UK National Blood Service Supply Chain Using Distributed Simulation

Abstract

In an attempt to investigate blood unit ordering policies, researchers have created a discreteevent model of the UK National Blood Service (NBS) supply chain in the Southampton area of the UK. The model has been created using Simul8, a commercial-off-the-shelf discrete-event simulation package (CSP). However, as more hospitals were added to the model, it was discovered that the length of time needed to perform a single simulation severely increased. It has been claimed that distributed simulation, a technique that uses the resources of many computers to execute a simulation model, can reduce simulation runtime. Further, an emerging standardized approach exists that supports distributed simulation with CSPs. These CSP Interoperability (CSPI) standards are compatible with the IEEE 1516 standard The High Level Architecture, the defacto interoperability standard for distributed simulation. To investigate if distributed simulation can reduce the execution time of NBS supply chain simulation, this paper presents experiences of creating a distributed version of the CSP Simul8 according to the CSPI/HLA standards. It shows that the distributed version of the simulation does indeed run faster when the model reaches a certain size. Further, we argue that understanding the relationship of model features is key to performance. This is illustrated by experimentation with two different protocols implementations (using Time Advance Request (TAR) and Next Event Request (NER)). Our contribution is therefore the demonstration that distributed simulation is a useful technique in the timely execution of supply chains of this type and that careful analysis of model features can further increase performance.

Bridging the gap

“…These were created by following SISO's Balloted Standards Development and Support Process (BPDSP), which involves several rounds of voting/balloting and refinement before a standard is formally recognized by SISO's Standards Activity Committee (SAC) and its Executive Committee (EXCOM). Examples of research based on IRMs include Wang et al [2006], who studied possible implementations, Taylor et al [2005a], who investigated the use of distributed simulation in engine manufacturing, Gan et al [2005] and Lendermann et al [2007], who investigated the use of distributed simulation in semiconductor manufacturing supply chains, and Mustafee et al [2009], who applied distributed simulation to a healthcare supply chain. Many of these authors have participated in the development of the CSPI standards.…”

“…The NBS federation is composed of one PTI federate and several hospital federates interacting via an RTI and specially developed adapter software (more details given below). The technical implementation of the NBS case study follows approaches developed in Taylor et al [2006], and Mustafee et al [2009]. More specifically, to link a CSP to an RTI, an adaptor called the CSP Controller Middleware (CCM) has been developed (as modifying a CSP or RTI directly is often not possible).…”

Distributed Modeling of Discrete Event Systems

“…[69], [77]), Health Care (e.g. [34]) and Production Scheduling & Maintenance (e.g. [72]), 17% of the articles are related to Health Care.…”

A game-based approach towards facilitating decision making for perishable products: An example of blood supply chain

“…The conceptual idea and initiative for the construction of the game is derived by a discrete-event simulation model (Katsaliaki and Brailsford, 2007) which identified improvements on the performance measures of a blood perishable product's supply chain. However, due to its complexity, the model was faced with run time problems which were overcome with the use of distributed simulation (Mustafee et al, 2009) . This evolution increased the technical complexity of the model and it was difficult to handle and be comprehended by its users.…”