Integration of discrete event simulation with other modeling techniques to simulate construction engineering and management: an overview

Although Discrete Event Simulation (DES) has been the preferred simulation technique in construction operation studies, it suffers from limitations, such as narrowed focus at the operational level. To minimize the effect of DES limitations, researchers have proposed the integration of DES with other simulation techniques, such as agent-based modeling (ABM), system dynamics (SD), and virtual environments (VE). However, limited studies have discussed whether this integration process minimizes DES’ limitations and to what extent. This study summarizes 99 journal manuscripts in the existing literature published between 2010-2020, focusing on integrating DES with ABM, SD, and VE. This study found that the integration of DES with ABM, SD, and VE addressed multiple of DES’ limitations, namely, the lack of human behaviors in process-oriented modeling, the limited strategic perspective, and challenges related to the verification and validation of DES models’ outputs. Ultimately, this study calls for future studies to evaluate the simultaneous integration of DES, ABM, and SD modeling techniques so the complexity of construction projects can be truly accounted for, as comprehensive simulation tools will require the integration of multiple methods to counterbalance their limitations.