Microsaint was developed in 1985 to fill in the gaps in simulations for human based tasks.  According to its developers, Microsaint fills in the gap in commercial simulators by targeting industries that have underutilized simulation.  These industries include manufacturing, healthcare, process reengineering and human factors  (Drury, 1996).
	Microsaint uses a graphical development system to ease development by users who are not computer savvy.  Its development methodology is called Task Network Modeling (TNM).  TNM allows for the design of the simulation in similar manner to creating a work flow diagram.  The entities on the diagram represent such things as people, patients, documents, or spare parts.  Arrows  are used to connect the entities to show their flow.  Mean times to complete a task are added to provide constraints.  Other conditions are then added to the diagram to determine what sequence tasks are performed and to produce output effects.  The simulator can be used on a stand-alone basis or be connected to a process data source for real-time updates (Barnes, 1996).