To lower the emissions of deep sea shipping, policymakers aim to decrease the use of heavy fuel oil (HFO) as a maritime fuel. Multiple alternatives for HFO exist, but despite new regulations, their use is still limited. To stimulate shipping companies to replace HFO by one of the alternatives, policymakers can use a variety of policy instruments. In this paper, we present a comprehensive system perspective of the maritime fuel system and agent-based model (MarPEM) that can be used to study the effects of policy instruments on the transition away from HFO. In contrast to existing studies on reducing maritime emissions, our system perspective captures the relations and dynamics between different components of the maritime fuel system. Thereby, it can account for the feedback and non-linear dynamics in the system. We illustrate the use of MarPEM to assess the effect of three policy instruments that each influence the maritime fuel system differently. The outcomes of the experiments are in line with previous studies and the opinion of industrial experts. The model is thus a valid representation of the maritime fuel system. By presenting a sufficiently detailed representation of the marine fuel socio-technical system, listing clear and detailed assumptions, and publishing the source code, future studies can use this work as basis to study the effects of other policy instruments. Thereby, this research enables future detailed studies of the maritime fuel system's transition. ... Read more

Industrial systems increasingly need to become more resilient to developments in their environment. To take the right decisions and improve their resilience, those companies need insight into the effects of resilience-enhancing actions. A substantial part of those actions' effects follow from the adaptation of the focal company's environment in response to its actions. The current, predominantly inward focused, perspective used to assess actions cannot be used to capture those indirect effects of an action. Therefore, this thesis addresses how we can conduct a more comprehensive assessment of a company's actions that can enhance its resilience. This research develops and tests a novel combination of theoretical perspectives to execute such a comprehensive assessment. In five case studies, with increasing complexity along several variables, we develop simulation models to assess a variety of possible resilience-enhancing actions. The outcomes of the case studies indicate that our combination of theoretical perspectives, operationalized in our models, can indeed capture the indirect effects of the assessed actions, and that including those indirect effects substantially influences the performance of the focal company. With this approach, companies can assess their proposed actions more comprehensively, enabling them to take actions that improve their resilience to the increasing volatility in industrial systems. ... Read more

The use of modular plants in the chemical industry is expected to make the structure of supply chains more dynamic. The models currently used to get insight in supply chains assume a predefined supply chain structure, as orders are exogenously defined. Consequently, those models cannot grasp the dynamic nature of supply chains with modular plants. In this paper a market conceptualization based on agent-based computational economics is presented that includes transport costs in the negotiations and enables the modeling of supply chains as structures that emerge from market dynamics. It is shown that this conceptualization can capture the market dynamics that are needed to simulate a dynamic supply chain. ... Read more