Design and Development of a Graphical System Dynamics Modelling Tool: Building a Modelling Tool for the System Dynamics Notation from a Software Engineering Perspective.

Since businesses grow bigger and bigger, the demand for modelling and describing a business’ underlying methodology increased steadily. The powerful design of the system dynamics notation helps to define the interfering dependencies in highly dynamic systems like businesses. In order to exploit all features modern business infrastructures offer, one can enrich those models with real data from various sources. Furthermore, simulation on data and models give the opportunity to dive deeply into a system’s behaviour without the constraint of existence. The goal of state-of-the-art business software is therefore to minimise the effort that has to be taken to combine static analysis and real-time event and business data in order to gain insight into existing and future business systems and facilitate decisions. The aim of this book in particular is to describe the development of a web-based system dynamics modelling tool, as well as architectural decisions that had to be taken into account from a software engineering perspective. Secondly, the applicability of such a modelling tool in not only system dynamics, but also in more generic scenarios will be discussed.

Jonas Mende, born in Leipzig, has studied Computer Science in Leipzig and Paisley. He has been working in different projects in software development and design.