Organizational Modeling and Simulation in a Planning Organization
Abstract
A team of researchers is pursuing an innovative approach to model development in a dynamic command and control (C2) organization. This team is developing an organizational modeling and simulation capability that differs from typical process modeling. Normal process modeling and simulation tools capture work processes but neglect the people and the information hierarchy. Modeling and simulation tools that focus on the organization holistically, account for other aspects of the organization, including implicit activities required to complete a certain task while portraying the hidden activities that are inherent to work (i.e., coordination costs). This type of research was started by the Virtual Design Team (VDT) research group; initiated at Stanford University in the late 1980s to help managers design organizations and work processes for executing fast-track development of complex products. VDT is an agent-based computational model of a project team and a set of work processes they are attempting to execute in a concurrent manner. VDT has been successfully used to model work activities, communications, and exception handling within traditional organizations working on projects in areas such as construction, aerospace, consumer product development, and healthcare. This will be one of the first applications of VDT-like capabilities in a dynamic C2 organization, building on prior work done by Stanford with the Naval Postgraduate School.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA503087
Entities
People
- Joseph B Lyons
- Marc Ramsey
- Patrick Vincent
- Paul Faas
- Raymond Levitt
- Stephanie Swindler
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory