e3value user guide

3.3 Value transfers

A value transfer is a willingness of a provider and a requester to transfer a value object from the first to the second. Providers and requesters can be actors, market segments, or value activities.

A value transfer is represented by a line connecting the out-port of a provider with the in-port of a requester, labeled with the name of the transferred value object. Figure 3.1 shows a transfer of a Train trip fro the Railway company to the Traveler and a payment of Money in the reciprocal direction.

A value transfer may additionally be labeled by the name of the transfer. The transfer name should express the role of the transfer for the actors connected by the transfer. For example, In figure 3.1 the transfer of Money has role payment.

A value transfer occurrence is an event in which an instance of the value object is transferred from provider to requester. All value transfer occurrences are discrete events that can be counted.

This is an economic fiction because physically, there is always a process. For example, provision of a the train trip from Amsterdam to Paris leaving Amsterdam at 8:42 on the first of April, 2020, is a process that takes a few hours. Provision of electricity to a home during the month of April, 2020 is a continuous occurrence that lasts a month.

The economic fiction is easier to understand if we realize that a value transfer occurrence is not a physical process but the transfer of a right.