Towards a unified conceptual model representation: a case study in healthcare

One of the critical success factors in a simulation project is good communication between different stakeholders in the project, especially in the early stages. Good documentation or representation is essential for communicating conceptual models between stakeholders effectively. Despite the lack of a single accepted definition for a conceptual model, most definitions agree that a conceptual model contains a set of components, each of which specifies different aspects of a conceptual model. This paper advocates the use of a standard multi-faceted representation of conceptual models. A number of diagrams are proposed to represent each of the conceptual model components. Our intention is to initiate discussion and the development of a standard multi-faceted conceptual model representation that will benefit stakeholders involved in a simulation project. A case study in healthcare is used to show how the proposed unified conceptual modelling representation can be applied in practice.