The Practical Guide to Defect Prevention

Understanding Stochastic Modeling

The basis of simulation and modeling rests with an understanding of systems and the relationships between variables of interest. From an early age, most people learn to break down problems into their fundamental building blocks and then reconstruct the system from the composite knowledge. This deconstructionist view is helpful when first attempting to understand a system, but it begins to create a misunderstanding of “the Big Picture” view of the world.

Ludwig Von Bertalanffy, considered by many as the creator of systems theory, points out that “to understand an organized whole we must know both the parts and the relations between them.”^[1] Traditional science provides a means to understand the parts through ...