News

Some language versions of the MacBook Pro keyboard do not provide easy access to some of the keys used by Smia (and other modelling/programming tools as well).

If you experience this problem, here is how you can fix it.

The difference between a number and a value, is that the value has a unit. Without units, numbers cannot be interpreted outside their implicit or explicit context. As an example, the number 52 could represent anything from your age or weight (in pounds, kilograms or stones....) to the number of cards in your deck of playing cards.

The use of explicit units on numbers, can greatly enhance readability and prevent unit consitency errors, such as "adding apples and bananas".

Various software…

Gaming is a means of "experiencing the future". In a game, the end-user takes part in the feedback loops of the micro-world that is portrayed by the game, providing a memory of possible futures.

Dynaplan Smia's new gaming engine makes it easy for modellers to develop games, such as, business strategy games, and deploy them in a local area network (LAN) environment.

Dynaplan Smia is used in a project for the Swiss post to improve the staffing situation in response to rapid development and change of the postal services due to technology change (SMS and Internet, for example) and shifts in demand.

Read more about the project here (Text in German).

Dynaplan has now got it's own RSS feed. All public news, blogs and articles will be posted in the RSS feed, so now you don't have to check the Dynaplan web site for news anymore. Whenever something is published on the web site, your aggregator (feed reader) will tell you about it, and by the click of a button, you will be sent directly to the new article.

You can find Dynaplan's RSS feed here.

A support forum has now been created on the web pages. Here the Dynaplan users can discuss different topics, share experiences, ask questions, and provide help and information to others. The forum will be viewable for all visitors, but only registered users can create and reply to threads. You can find the forum under Support -> Forum.

A new quality of personnel planning Many companies do not have the right tools for meaningful long-term personnel planning. But making the wrong decisions can prove to be costly. Therefore, the AOK has chosen a tool which enables dynamic, flexible and holistic planning. AOK is a public health insurance in Germany with 17 independent units in the federal states under supervision of the states and the ministry. AOK has around 60000 employees. The number of persons insured : ~30% of the population…

Can economic growth continue forever? Will technology development solve growth related problems faster than we create them? Or will our planet in the near future face limits such as pollution, food shortage, and population density?

In 1971 Jay Forrester published his book World Dynamics, where he presented a high-level simulation model of the socio-economic-environmental world system. The main purpose of the model and the accompanying book was to encourage an open debate about the long-term…

System dynamics solves difficult problems with ease, but it cannot deal with simple ones.

The spreadsheets is the assembly language for financial modelling.