Agent Based Process Simulation for Management and Economics

Simulation is an increasingly popular way of describing social models, alternative to other two symbol systems: the verbal argumentation and the mathematical one. The advantage is the high portability on computers; programs can then be used to model either quantitative theories or qualitative ones. There are mainly two approaches: Process Simulation, which is generally used to create models of well known parts of enterprises or mechanical/electronic systems and Agent Based Simulation, which allows to study the emergence of social behaviour with the creation of models, known as "artificial societies". The main goal of this work is to present a hybrid formalism, which uses the best parts of the two, to build realistic economical, management and social models. Metaphors Based Modelling is also introduced as a technique for converting a real social system into a computer model.