La dinámica de sistemas, la simulación de eventos discretos y la simulación basada en agentes son tres formas de modelamiento ampliamente usadas para la toma de decisiones empresariales. Estos paradigmas están enfocados en representar el comportamiento de los sistemas en el tiempo, aunque con perspectivas distintas. En este artículo se presenta una comparación de los tres paradigmas en 10 aspectos, comparación que puede servir como referente para elegir la técnica más apropiada para un problema requerido.

This research work makes a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the simulation paradigms. The three paradigms studied in this work are: system dynamics, discrete event simulation and agent-based simulation. In the qualitative analysis, the definitions and characteristics of each of the three methods are detailed first and then the distinctive elements of each paradigm are showed in a comparative table. The quantitative analysis is performed through a case study, where first the problem is modeled and simulated through the focus of each particular method. After that, by using different scenarios it is showed the advantages and disadvantages of using a paradigm over the others. This is showed in a comparative summary of the scenarios. The integration of the qualitative and quantitative characteristics that distinguish each paradigm are presented in the conclusions.