Simulation of administrative labour costs in seaport clusters

The main goal of modeling and simulation in seaport clusters (and in general) is to research data and information related to behavior of the system based on research of the model, and not by direct insight into the system itself. During the next step of research, after the model is created, it is possible to perform experiments in order to gather more data regarding the existing or future state of the system. Systems can be quite diverse because they exist in different areas of interest. Inside the given area, additional systems may exist, but with a different set of goals. For the same system, different models can be devised depending on the goals, modeling approach, different means used to model and simulate, different level of knowledge of those creating the model, etc. If different systems are accounted for, a number of possible variations significantly rises. Research of the system by using the modeling requires thorough definition of questions whose answer should be derived from simulation process. Usually, the modeling inclusion criteria requires that only those aspects of the system relevant for the research are included. All other aspects are disregarded as much as possible in order to simplify the model. Modeling and simulations are usually used to research complex systems, so it is important to exclude all those elements that would make the model even more complex, but do not contribute significantly towards quality of the received answers to underlying questions. Modeling procedure consists of several sequential steps, while final two stages, simulation experiment and analysis of results are repeated until the research is completed and the data related to set model is acquired. This process is shown in Fig. 1. The model usually shows a static situation of the system at a given moment. The state of the system is represented by the state of a number of significant parameters. Simulation process is in fact a time-bound execution of the system state in a given time frame. (Smiljanić, 1995.)