Weighted Activity and Costing of Surveillance and Control in Animal Epidemiology

Abstract

Activity based modeling and simulation is a very promising field. It has recently demonstrated its potential from modeling software development methods [9] to the design of low energy sensors. In this position paper, I would like to initiate a reflexion on the use of the weighted activity in the context of financial costing using the formulation recently proposed by X. Hu and B.P. Zeigler [5]. I propose here to formalize a recent approach of costing, the Time-Driven Activity Based Costing [3], using the theoretical modeling framework initiated by B.P. Zeigler [6]. I argue that this specification can potentially improve the traditional model of Time-Driven Activity Based Costing. I illustrate the approach in the context of surveillance and control in animal epidemiology. The demonstration of its effectiveness is not done in this position paper. Nevertheless, as the existing costing systems are designed to support decision making in business management, the scenario based approach proposed in this paper should be very useful to support decisions in complex management situations.