Distributed Simulation Using Agents for the Internet of Things and the Factory of the Future
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper deals with Distributed Simulation (DS) using Agents for the IoT and the factory of the future. Overall, the paper is well written and presenting information about DS in mitigating risks considering the factor of the future with two specific case studies in IoT to solve problems or challenges identified in the manufacturing industry. The paper presents technical advances applied to IoT within the traditional linear manufacturing supply chains into dynamic and integrated systems. The paper traverses some established elements associated Agents as a DS synergy and matches the IoT technical issues and challenges. It describes scalable solutions as it impacts the integrated system as a solution to contribute to the overall interconnected systems on manufacturing industry. The paper matches the topic of IoT technical issues and challenges and the impact on the manufacturing industry to provide solutions with the use of Agents as a DS paradigm. For these reasons, the overall merit is high.
Author Response
Thank you for your advice on our manuscript entitled “Distributed Simulation using Agents for the Internet of Things and the Factory of the Future”. We appreciate the time and effort that you dedicated to providing feedback on our manuscript and are grateful for the insightful points to our paper.
Reviewer 2 Report
Interesting paper showing benefits of using distributed simulation of agent-based model for IoT
Researchers presented significant cases to demonstrate the applicability of using agents as distributed simulation to test the feasibility of IoT technology
Lacking detailed information about setup used for simulation. What is the cost of such simulation? Is this solution applicable for small enterprises too?
Why is Java used to capture the data instead of a compiled programming language for better performance?
Author Response
Thank you for your advice on our manuscript entitled “Distributed Simulation using Agents for the Internet of Things and the Factory of the Future”. We appreciate the time and effort that you dedicated to providing feedback on our manuscript and are grateful for the insightful points to our paper. The following are the responses to your question.
- Lacking detailed information about the setup used for simulation.
Section 3.2.2. (Building the Simulation Model) including Figure 1,2 and 3 highlight the Statechart of the Warehouse Agent, DES Processing Modeling Logic, and the structure of the hybrid model of simulation
- What is the cost of such simulation?
There was no additional cost for modeling and running the simulation model since the PLE version of Anylogic software was adequate for calculate the RIO of IoT investment. Professional version is necessary for unlimited model size and external database integration components.
- Is this solution applicable for small enterprises too?
Yes, it can be used also for small enterprises.
- Why is Java used to capture the data instead of a compiled programming language for better performance?
Anylogic (the simulation software used in the research) is written in Java and turns models into Java. It includes a graphical modeling language and also allows the user to extend simulation models with Java code. The Java nature of AnyLogic lends itself to custom model extensions via Java coding. The Professional version allows for the creation of Java runtime applications that can be distributed to users.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for your complete answers. I think the answers are sufficient.
