Boomin' Business Model
By Skylar Bell and Paul James
Throughout the month of December, we were assigned a project where we were tasked with constructing a model in the programs Vensim and AgentCubes. We decided to make a business model, showing population dynamics of unemployed and employed people, as well as employers. The employed people could either be promoted or demoted, and that respectively would turn them into an employer or an unemployed person. There are six rates that affect the populations: Death rate, birth rate, employment rate, demotion rate, promotion rate, and unemployment rate.
Vensim Model
The Vensim model graphed a general population, which was composed of a starting total of 500 unemployed people, 1000 employed people, and 25 employers. The total population directly affects the birth rate, and the worker and unemployed populations affect the employment rate. The rest of the rates remain constant throughout the simulation. The graph shows the model over the course of 200 months, and the populations barely increase over time.
AgentCubes Model
The AgentCubes model created was composed of four agents: The yard, the workplace, the counter, and people. There are three shapes for the people, which are employer, employee, and unemployed. The function of the agents and shapes are as follows: The yard is the place where the unemployed and employers move randomly, meanwhile the worker moves randomly on the workplace. Each time anyone moves once, their life value increases by one, and every time an employee moves, there work timer is increased by one. After anyone's life reaches a certain age, there is a chance that they will die. If an unemployed person's age reaches a certain number, there is a chance that they will give birth to another unemployed person. If a worker's work value reaches a certain number, there is a chance that they will either be promoted or fired. If they are fired, they will become an unemployed person and be transported to the yard. If they are promoted, they will become an employer and also be transported to the yard. If the number of unemployed people reaches a certain number, then the birth rate drops to 0, and if it is too low then it resets to the normal rate. If there are too many or too little employers to hire unemployed people into the workforce, then the demotion rate and death rates will adjust accordingly. These adjustments to the rates are only to maintain the continuity of the model, and do not accurately represent a real life scenario.
