The main purpose of this text is to provide an up-to-date foundation for applying discrete event simulation and agent-based modeling. It is perhaps true that no other book covers as many topics of interest for providing real-world decision-support including:
1. Open source simulation programming including Visual Basic (VB) and NetLogo which provide inexpensive options for businesses,
2. Agent-based modeling,
3. Variance-reduction techniques such as Latin-Hypercube sampling,
4. Process improvement opportunity identification using the theory of constraints, lean production, and other contemporary methods,
5. Output analysis including selection and ranking and design of experiments,
6. Black box simulation and multi-fidelity optimization,
7. Quasi-Monte Carlo,
8. Subjectivity including the nature of probabilities and empirical distributions,
9. Input analysis including samples sizes and distributions fitting, and
10. Introduction to well-known software packages (ARENA and SIMIO).