2 Model
In this section, the agent-based model for describing
essential dynamics of quality of a commercial
service-providing company is formulated.
The model emphasises one company, serviceprovider
of otherwise unspecified characteristics. The
company functions within a commercial, competitive
market characterised by known and shared companyrelated
information within the end-user society. The
existence of other companies is implicitly assumed, thus
they are not modelled explicitly.
Elements of the model are the two types of agents,
the environment and the rules. First agent type includes
company’s departments. Second agent type represents
end-users. Depending on the particular realisation, the
second type may refer to unspecified ratio of individual
and collective end-users. Environment consists of
company’s raw materials providers, and of general
implicitly specified market. Rules in the model define the
dynamics on the micro-level and consist of the following
types: (i) rules governing agent-agent interactions, (ii)
rules governing agent-environment interactions and (iii)
rules governing internal environment interactions. The
rules are described along with the introduction of agents.
In a separate sub-section we attribute a set of micro- and
macro-level indicators to the model.
2.1 First Agent Type
Company’s departments need to be treated explicitly
as separate entities since modern companies generally
consist of several units differing in physical locations,
organisational structure, field of expertise etc. Thus, the
production unit, distribution unit, customer-relations unit,
quality management unit and also the subcontractors,
temporary established franchises etc. are of this type.
In order to represent the essence of organisational
structure, we consider two agents of the first type: one is
the agent that represents department performing the
service and the other is the agent representing the quality
management department. Variables have index p(q) if
they refer to the former (later) agent. The following
time-dependent functions are attributed to the first agent:
quantity of resources spent in a given time unit rp, number
of services started in a given time unit sp and the
capability function of the agent cp (in all functions, time
dependence is suppressed for clarity). These functions are
modelled in such a way that they contain further
parameters and sub-functions which are addressed further
in details further in this sub-section.
It is assumed that the first agent can perform N
services per time unit. Quantity N includes both the newly
provided services and the continuation of services the
conduction of which started in some previous time unit.
Let h(k, δ) denote number of services needed in the k
th
time unit by people who already wait δ time units. It must
be stressed that number of people asking for a service in
the k
th time unit, n(k), is assumed to be a stochastic
variable, the distribution function of which is Poisson