The Metamodel in Simulation Analysis: Can It Be Trusted?

The use of a mathematical metamodel such as a regression model, constructed from simulation data and used to aid in the analysis of the simulated system, has been studied in recent years. For practitioners, the vast benefits of establishing a functional relationship among the variables in an unfamiliar and complex simulated system may be largely overshadowed by the concern that the metamodel, being a strongly data-based technique, may be valid only for the one particular set of simulation-generated data that went into it, which is to say not valid at all. Based on a study of 30 simulation experiments using three different simulation models, the authors conclude that the simulation metamodel is a reliable and valid technique to use in post-simulation analysis, and is probably just as good as the simulation model on which it is based.