Abstract for: The missing seventh stage: model construction

The system dynamics methodology life cycle has benefited from a substantial amount of work in model formulation, group collaboration, and model testing. There seems to be a missing link, the link that corresponds to model construction. The hypothesis is that system dynamics modelers report on models they have built. Modelers do not report on the model construction process. This may be due to limited space and time for presentation, especially at conferences. A measure, or measures, of the quality of the model construction process is appropriate to judge the quality and usefulness of those models. This paper examines models submitted to the International Conference of the System Dynamics Society from 2009 to 2013 via the ‘Supporting’ link on the conference proceedings web page. Presented are the results of applying objective and subjective criteria to model construction.