Agent-Based Multi-organizational Interaction Design: A Case Study of the Dutch Railway System

In multi-organizational alliances, inter- and intra-organizational interactions are performed in dynamic environments towards the cooperative goals. To adapt to such dynamics, not only should organizational design provide sufficient representation of organizational requirements, but also provide control mechanisms to switch between different contextual states as a response to an external change. OperA+, as an agent-based organization modeling framework, on the one hand, inherits the advantages of describing and analyzing complex relations between entities, and on the other hand, supports design, analysis and communication of organizational knowledge at multiple levels of abstraction in multiple contexts. This paper aims at a demonstration of OperA+ for an analysis and design study of the Dutch railway system in the domain of train maintenance which is expecting an organization evolution from the current system to a new design.