Abstract for: Very large system dynamics applications with Powersim Studio

Although large models are not the preferred modeling practice within the SD community there are times when it is necessary. The purpose of this workshop is to discuss the lessons learned from developing very large SD applications. There are some valuable lessons to be extracted from the work we have done over the past 6 years. It is important to justify why a System Dynamics model develops into a large model and to separate it from the tendency for inexperienced modelers to develop large models. SD models that become very large are large because they include a lot of detail complexity. We sometimes label this dichotomy, scope versus scale. It is important to understand the difficulties and time necessary when developing a large detail and dynamic complex model and to plan accordingly. It is also important to continuously manage the customer’s expectations.