Widening requirements capture with soft methods: an investigation of hybrid M&S studies in health care

A simulation study consists of several stages: problem formulation, model implementation, verification and validation, experimentation and output data analysis. The application of multiple techniques in the model implementation stage is referred to as hybrid simulation, which we distinguish in this paper from a hybrid M&S study, the latter referring to studies that apply methods and techniques from disciplines like Operations Research (OR), Systems Engineering and Computer Science to one or more stages of a simulation study. Our paper focuses on the contribution of soft OR methods in the problem formulation stage of a simulation study (and by extension a hybrid M&S study). Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) has, arguably, been the most widely used qualitative approach for eliciting system requirements. In this paper, we present Qualitative System Dynamics (QSD), a soft systems method, as having potential use in the problem formulation stage of a healthcare M&S study. The contribution of this paper is thus twofold: (1) a review of the literature in SSM for healthcare operations management and (2) an examination of QSD as an additional soft OR method, complementing (rather than supplanting) existing approaches, which can further aid the understanding of the system in the problem formulation/conceptual modelling stage of a hybrid M&S study.