Higher Order Models

Abstract

This chapter presents a higher order model, which has a greater number of stocks and feedbacks than those presented in earlier chapters. This is an important perspective, as real-world system dynamics models tend to have a significant number of stocks. To aid understanding, higher order models are often sub-divided into distinct sectors, where each sector contains a recognizable sub-system. This higher order model represents a primary health care system that models an aging demographic, the supply of general practitioners, and the annual demand the population places onto the primary care system. Before presenting this model two important modeling constructs are described. These are delays, which allow modelers to simulate time lags, and the stock management structure, which provides a structure to simulate how decision makers regulate the stock levels.