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Philosophy and Basic Concepts of the Model Description Language Simplex-MDL | 
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It became apparent that flows of material in a flexibly linked system only work well, if they are controlled centrally.
A demand for a simulator therefore arose that can be applied to the world of production engineers and the world of electrical engineers as well who develop the control modules.
Flows of material as well as processing of information should be representable in a language easily to be understood.
This was the starting point of the model description language Simplex-MDL. Its very central idea is to introduce the modular structure found typically in the field of system theory of electrical engineers into the world of production engineers.
Accordingly, components of Simplex-MDL are not only provided with interfaces to exchange information, but also with interfaces to exchange material units in a similar way.
Material units are treated differently from information in that they must always be on some locality. Once they disappear from one place, they must appear at another.
Simplex-MDL is designed to exclude the greatest possible number of errors that might arise when describing the model. This is guaranteed by the concept of the language as well as by the many semantic checks of the model.
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The underlying system theoretic concept grants the language another characteristic. Models are formulated on several levels each demanding different skills with respect to model description. At the lowest level, MOBILE COMPONENTS are defined which are datatypes that may be structured hierarchily and represent, for example, goods, persons or vehicles. At the medium level there are components (BASIC COMPONENTs) that define the dynamic behaviour of model variables and their interdepenedencies. The compound components (HIGH LEVEL COMPONENTs) define links between basic components and may be hierarchically structured.
At the higher levels models are therefore only composed of basic modules. They are built just by defining assignments which allows a graphical representation of the model in a whole. The final user only needs little knowledge about mathematical modelling in order to construct his own specific model.
The partitioning of models into components enables the assembly of model databases for each subject of science. Simplex3 is delivered with model databases of various fields of application that contain many of the components commonly needed.
Therefore the language is suited for a bottom-up model design.
