Simulation of a distributed design project

Dissemination of system dynamics to project management practitioners is not as widespread as its use for project management theory building within the system dynamics community. This article presents a decision support and training project model built for a global consulting and engineering company. The simulation model comprises the most important work phases within the detail engineering phase of a large investment project in three offices. The model was validated using data from several past projects and in workshops with the company. A user interface was built to aid dissemination and use of the model. The purpose of the model is the bottleneck analysis and simulation of an ongoing engineering project, as well as the simulation of quality, scheduling, and profitability issues when outsourcing parts of the detail plant engineering