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The HinesCoflow is a modification of the classical coflow structure used in system dynamics [6, pp. 50f.]. The traditional coflow is a model of a stock's average quality (e.g., age, weight, price, income etc.) changing, as new entities with different characteristics u flow in while older entities flow out—in which case we assume, that the outflowing entities have an average quality [3, pp. 497-511].
The HinesCoflow makes use of the fact, that the average quality of the entities in the stock is diluted by inflowing entities of different quality, i.e., the process is a smooth with a variable time constant. The benefit of this formulation is, that the average quality of the stock is directly modeled by a stock, so that processes that change the average (e.g., gaining experience over the time of residence for a stock of workers) can be directly modeled as in- or outflows to the HinesCoflow.
StockInfoInput connector to collect the required information from a connected stock. For this to properly work out, inflows and outflows should not be mixed at a single StockPort (e.g., it is best practice to connect known inflows to the inflow and known outflows to the outflow port). In case of a bi-directional flow, only one bi-flow should be connected to any single StockPort—no additional flows should be present at that port (see notes for →AbsoluteSensor).StockInfoOutput (y_stockInfo) can be used to pass the stock information received from a connected stock onward to additional coflow components—or sensors.The Hines Coflow is explicitly named after its creator, James Hines. More information can be found on his website.