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

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 production systems or transportation 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.