Distinguishing Control and Plant Dynamics in Enterprise Modeling

Two factors can confound the interpretation of an enterprise model. First, the dynamics of the control technology interact in complex ways with those of the plant, and engineers need to be able to distinguish these effects. Second, “mean field” approximations of the behavior of the system may be useful for qualitative examination of the dynamics, but can differ in surprising ways from the behavior that emerges from the interactions of discrete agents. This paper examines these effects in the context of a specific research project applying agent-based control to a military air operations scenario.