„It‘s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.“ - This proverb, attributed to numerous famous people , is in a positive sense the foundation of the scenario technique. Instead of predicting the future it tries to describe several possible scenarios of what might happen. Scenario technique is a tool to reveal the knowledge of an expert group about possible and consistent scenarios of the future. The current use of this technique suffers from an inflexibility of the available software.

To overcome this shortage, the core part of this solver, i.e. the scenario generation phase, is re-implemented. We demonstrate that it can be formulated as an integer linear programming problem. To find all feasible solutions the solver SCIP is adapted. The solutions are then clustered and these clusters are verbally described. We further analyze, how to extend the classical Scenario Technique with elements from System Dynamics, in order to better understand the transition from the present to the future described in the scenarios.

Partners

• TU Berlin
• Zuse Institute Berlin

Funding

• Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG, Collaborative Research Center SFB-1026.

Related talks

• A Mathematical Approach for the Analysis of Energy Scenarios for Production in India, International Conference on Micro Perspectives for Decentralized Energy Supply, Berlin, Germany, 8.4.2011.
• Future Studies for Reuse Using Mathematical Optimization of the Scenario Technique, 8th Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing, Abu Dhabi, United Arabian Emirates, 23.11.2010.
• Scenario Technique with Integer Programming for Sustainability in Manufacturing, 8th International Heinz Nixdorf Symposium, Paderborn, Germany, 22.4.2010.

Related publications

• Achim Brose, Armin Fügenschuh, Pia Gausemeier, Ingmar Vierhaus, Günther Seliger, A System Dynamic Enhancement for the Scenario Technique , ZIB Technical Report ZR-13-24, 2013.
• Armin Fügenschuh, Pia Gausemeier, Randy McFarland, Günther Seliger, Future Studies for Reuse using Mathematical Optimization of the Scenario Technique , Günther Seliger, Marwan M. K. Khraisheh und I. S. Jawahir (Eds.), Advances in Sustainable Manufacturing, Proceedings of the 8th Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing, pp. 215 – 221, 2011.
• Armin Fügenschuh, Pia Gausemeier, Randy McFarland, Günther Seliger, A Mathematical Approach for the Analysis of Energy Scenarios for Production in India , Martin Schäfer, Noara Kebir, Daniel Philipp (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference on Micro Perspectives for Decentralized Energy Supply, pp. 162 – 172, 2011.
• Armin Fügenschuh, Pia Gausemeier, Günther Seliger, Semih Severengiz, Scenario Technique with Integer Programming for Sustainability in Manufacturing , Wilhelm Dangelmaier, Alexander Blecken, Robin Delius, Stefan Klöpfer (Eds.), Advanced Manufacturing and Sustainable Logistics, 8th International Heinz Nixdorf Symposium, IHNS 2010, Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, Vol. 46, pp. 320 – 331, 2010.