System Dynamics does an excellent peer review of articles. This year, eeing the reviewers' comments and suggestions online was especially welcomed feedback. The additional benefit of initiating a dialog with the reviewers was a bonus.
However, there is always room for improvement. Your thoughts and ideas are welcomed to help us continue to improve our peer review process. Please consider joining a dialog at our Boston meeting to further explore the peer review process. Your presence and ideas are welcome.
Some thoughts for consideration are as follows: 1. Need the peer review process start and end so abruptly? Should the reviewer and writer continue the dialog post the society meeting if mutually agreed? Should a reviewer mentor this process? 2. Are there submissions for review that could be enhanced and offered to other venues for publication, and thus improve recognition for the System Dynamics Society? Should a reviewer mentor this process? 3. Could a practitioners develop a business methodology from theory presented in a peer reviewed paper, or could academics proved theoretical underpinnings for a practical approach presented? Should a reviewer facilitate this process?
If you are interested in discussing these peer review ideas or others, please consider joining an informal meeting!
This paper explores Dynamic Unity between Theory U and System Dynamics
as a way to generally illuminate the "blind spot" and create the setting for
presencing. By describing the blind spot as a System Dynamics process with a
model and behavior, it is hoped that Dynamic Unity will facilitate recognition of the blind spot and produce better understanding of social actions. Dynamic unity between Theory U and System Dynamics will facilitate: identification of common assumptions, modeling of the current problem, producing repeatable results through simulation, and discovery of new insights from simulation results. The instance of presencing will remain the domain of social science, neuroscience and others to explain. Using System Dynamics to project policies through simulation, identify emerging phenomenon, accelerate the learning process, decrease dependence on past experience, change mental models into
new insightful beliefs will take us to the threshold of Theory U presencing.
The success of the Polio Eradication Initiative promises to bring the world the benefits of sustained improvements in quality of life (i.e., cases of paralysis and deaths avoided) and saved costs from cessation of vaccination. Obtaining these benefits requires that policy makers manage both the transition from the current massive use of oral polio vaccine (OPV) to a world without OPV and the risks of potential future reintroductions of polioviruses. In 2001, we began a case study on retrospective polio risk management to demonstrate the importance of using a dynamic disease model to correctly estimate the cost-effectiveness of vaccines. Discussions with the CDC about the case study led to an opportunity for us to develop a large model to support the prospective decision making process. This paper tells the story of our journey, emphasizing insights about the requirements for analysts to create tools that really help high-level decision makers.
The development of large software systems using systems dynamics languages has been hampered by the lack of application of, and support for, modern software techniques. Support is needed to handle the challenges of modular system dynamics model development. These development challenges include the handling of namespaces, linking separate modes, and maintaining clean logical separations among components. Most modern software patterns and languages support such a capability. This paper presents an approach to group, large scale, system dynamics model development that has proven valuable in our project. Our approach included the creation of a software tool, called Conductor, to facilitate our group development. The tool, Conductor, is generally applicable to other projects using Vensim®.
Mental models are bases to recognise phenomena and make plans to improve situations. They can be expressed in model builders' natural language. It is also necessary to examine mental models using a computer simulation. The Computer simulation requires expressions, which can be translated into computer codes. Therefore, model builders need to translate their model from their own natural language to simulation-friendly language, i.e. stock flow diagrams in System Dynamics. It is widely recognised that this translation is sometimes difficult not only for people who are beginners of System Dynamics but also for people who are experienced in the field. This paper discusses a possible translation procedure and shows an application of it. The proposed procedure is designed to use a subset of a natural language as an intermediate language. This idea is applicable regardless of variety of natural language.
Today software vendors have various ways to handle their products. In contrast to non-software products, software products' properties can be changed or controlled at a low cost; vendors do not need to extend their operations, and well-designed software can be customized systematically. Moreover, its diffusion is influenced by network externalities. The diffusion structures of software that have single user type, e.g. World Wide Web browsers, can be expressed mainly as a single reinforcing loop. This is because users can be considered as homogeneous. However, there are multiple possibilities of structure, which corresponds to business strategies for software which has divided users. An example in this category would be highly specialized software, e.g. simulation software. We attempt to explain diffusion processes and characteristics concerning network externalities of software in this category using System Dynamics models. This paper shows that multiple editions can more effectively assist diffusion of main products than strengthening network externality effects.
We describe an attempt to model an enterprises expansion into business adjacencies within the scope of a Master thesis. It was crucial to define a strategy that would allow the Master student to grow with the task (gain experience with modeling), at the same time ensuring communication with the client and proving the ability of qualitative SD modeling to deliver insights.
After identifying problem symptoms, the enterprise problem was explored with methods from Chris Zook: Beyond the Core. Six cases from Zooks book offering points of entry for the enterprise problem were cast into generic archetypes and presented to the problem owner. Two archetypes belonging to the Underachievement class were identified as most relevant for the enterprise problem, viz. 1) underachievement due to long distance between the core and the adjacency, and 2) underachievement due to poor adjacency repeatability. We developed a preliminary system dynamics model embedding both archetypes. The model gives sensible results with basic policies affecting distance to the core and repeatability. The preliminary results have strengthened the clients interest in the modeling work. Further joint modeling sessions have been scheduled. Work is still in progress.
Though evaluation of public policy and projects of government-to-government assistance are quite common in Japan, evaluator use logical model bases for evaluation that is simple tree type model without incorporate loop or feed back effects. Author has insisting that SD modeling is applicable for quantitative evaluation of public policy but find some difficulty with traditional group model building method. In this paper, we wish to discuss new style SD/ST model building for public policy evaluation.
Pressures from human induced climate-change, pollution, and fossil fuel scarcity stimulate interest in alternative fuel vehicles, and in particular hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs). The transition from internal combustion engine vehicles to HFCVs is complex as various chicken-egg mechanisms interact in a highly integrated fashion, and the mechanisms are highly non-linear. This paper focuses on one of the most critical chicken-egg problems: the mutualistic dynamics of HFCV adoption and its fueling infrastructure. The effects of local demand-supply interactions on these dynamics are explored in depth. This paper develops a dynamic, behavioral model of vehicle adoption and fueling infrastructure with explicit spatial structure. Simulations are performed for a reduced version. A homogeneous market with strategically locating fuel-station entrants yields fast transition through the formation of adoption clusters (niches). However, under heterogeneous conditions the same micro-mechanisms can counteract the emergence of a sustainable market. Policy implications are significant. This spatial behavioral dynamic model (SBDM) can be used to compare targeted entrance strategies for hydrogen fuel supply. Insights can be used for an aggregate HFCV transition model that includes other mechanisms. Finally, the paper should stimulate a discussion on merits and limitations of spatial modeling as applied to more general socio-economic issues.