An investigation of Hybrid Simulation for modeling sustainability in healthcare

An investigation into modeling and simulation approaches for sustainable operations management

“…The difficulty of developing models for sustainability analysis is essentially related to the complexity and uncertainty of such system. Our findings show that such complexity appears from the early stages of the modeling exercise in the problem identification and conceptualization phase [92]. According to our findings, unlike productivity-based modeling, problem identification in TBL modeling does not follow linear causal principles.…”

“…Furthermore, it has been previously stated that hybrid M&S reduces the complexity, but developing a hybrid model can be very challenging [70]. So, as argued in this paper, although SD-DES simulation is more likely to be preferred hybrid approach for TBL modeling, developing such hybrid model for sustainability analysis could be very challenging [92]. We have identified that there are two main challenges that have to be taken into the consideration while developing hybrid discrete-continuous model [93].…”

“…We thus argue that a simulation approach chosen for TBL modeling may include both discrete and continuous modeling capabilities; this would address both short-term changes and the long-term evolution of the system under scrutiny. The argument is further strengthened by our experience of the combined use of two discrete approaches ABS-DES [91] and SD-DES [92] for sustainable planning in healthcare. The findings from the former showed that the application of ABS-DES hybrid model for complex TBL-based systems could be tedious and, at some levels, prone to inconsistencies.…”

“…With respect to modeling for sustainability, it could be argued that the combined application of DES-SD could sufficiently model a number of underlying characteristics of a TBL-based system. This is also based on our investigation of the DES-SD hybrid approach for TBL modeling in healthcare [31]. This does not, however, suggest that other techniques are not appropriate; indeed, further research is needed to investigate particular combinations in relation to modeling the TBL dynamics.…”

“…However, despite this recent increase our findings have shown that there is a dearth of studies on the application of M&S in addressing the TBL and challenges still remain in developing, implementing and validating models [27,28]. Developing models that respond to these complexities is not a trivial task for modelers [29,30] since they require to ensure that the models are, (a) applicable to the real world, (b) consider the appropriate levels of details [31], and (c) consider all three sustainable development pillars (TBL) in their analyses [32]. These assumptions need to be further investigated in the context of complex and uncertain systems like the TBL system.…”