That was the Wikipedia engineering example of the discipline. My Professor of Simulation Modelling used to solve problems of big multi-national companies. One story involved the problem a company was having with oil tankers worldwide, trying to make them as profitable as possible. Eventually after much research and modelling the problem was found to be the harbour masters taking "back handers" for a quicker entry into port.
There's certain problems which are better suited to simulation modelling and some better suited to mathematical modelling.