A Federated Simulation Framework for Cross-Organisational Processes

Abstract : Simulation is a significant toolthat can be usedto evaluate, monitor and enhance the processes and to predict the behaviour of a system in a particular scenario. Collaborative pro-cesses involving multiple organisations are becoming important in the changing landscape of the manufacturing industry towards industry 4.0. Simulating these processes require an inde-pendent and distributed execution because of the privacy concerns of partner organisations and the re-usability of existing simulators. In this paper, we propose a simulation framework based on a federated approach for the simulation of collaborative processes. The federated approach enables the simulation of parts of the processes from multiple organisationsby combining independent simulators through a common interface. The common interface is responsible for the synchronisation of all the simulators within the federation. The framework will be evaluated using an industrial case study of textile manufacturing using Virtual Organisations.