Abstract for: Intro to Ventity – mixing SD, DES and ABM in one model

Ventity is a companion to Vensim that provides an elegant way to blend classic system dynamics with discrete event and agent-based modeling. Features facilitate modularity and collaboration, provide a more natural description of detail than arrays, and solve sparse matrix problems. This is a hands-on introduction to Ventity. We will introduce the software and new concepts, including collections of entities, attributes, relationships, aggregation and allocation functions, and actions. Our testbed will be a classic SD logistics model similar to the beer game, but we'll try variants with discrete events and agents, and if time permits, networks, all in the same model. This will shed light on key questions: when and how should you aggregate, and what are the tradeoffs between depth and breadth?