The increasing importance to predict the storage and flow behavior of granular materials and the need to optimize the processing leads towards ever more complex discrete element models. To parametrize these models, simulation parameters are often iteratively varied until the macroscopic particle behavior corresponds to experimental findings. However, this technique is not always practicable and does not consider the microscopic particle behavior. To study local and microscopic phenomena using the discrete element method, a parameter identification procedure is developed, which solely needs standardized and simple experiments and no supplementary parameter adaptation process. The experimentally identified parameters can be directly transferred to a complex discrete element model, in this case: a ring shear cell. After this the results have been compared to measurements. The validation displays that the developed parametrization procedure is sufficient to identify the model parameters experimentally and makes the numerical parameter adaptation unnecessary. Additionally, all identified parameters are related to physical quantities which facilitates the interpretation of the simulation. Hence, the presented parameter identification procedure extends the actual parametrization technique and especially helps to develop discrete element models where an alignment with experiments is impossible, or local and microscopic phenomena play a key role. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.