Asynchronous agent-based simulation and optimization of parallel business

Abstract

A Port Container Terminal (PCT) involves complex business processes which are carried out by at least four organizations, namely PCT Operator, Customer, Quarantine and Customs. Each organization produces event log data from the activities. The event log data from the four organizations contain synchronous and asynchronous activities. In this research, the four organizations are represented by four agents. By simulating this log data using agent based simulation, we get the performance of the current business process. The performance indicators gathered are time and cost which are needed to do the activity (task). After the simulation is complete, we found Asynchronous Waiting Time (AWT). AWT is waiting time which happens because the agent in the simulation cannot do the newly assigned task because the agent is still working on the other task. Therefore, we parallelize the task performed by the agent so that the agent can do multiple tasks at a time. After we parallelize the task, we perform an optimization process using Stochastic Multicriteria Adaptability Analysis 2 (SMAA-2). Thus, the optimal amount of task an agent can do simultaneously is analyzed. This study result shows that parallelization can reduce AWT of the current system and the optimization process using SMAA-2 shows the most optimal number of multiple tasks an agent can do simultaneously.