Uploaded on 2016-08-05 by Aleksander Ødegård

The city of Kongsberg, Norway, was founded in 1624 because of its large stocks of silver in the hills surrounding this part of the valley. However, the silver was mined and have therefore in my mind ever since fluctuated between being stock and flow as it has been transformed into coins, jewelry et cetera which has been kept as stock and traded multiple times since it was mined. Today Kongsberg is a knowledge intensive city with educational institutions and world-class high-tech industry. As a result of this, Kongsberg has a significant flow of people, information and capital among others. The population is a modest 28 000 inhabitants, but every weekday thousands of engineers and economists commute from the surrounding cities of Drammen and Oslo et cetera to work here. The majority of the workforce is situated in the local community, but the high percentage of commuters cannot be denied. There are also a fair share of international workers coming here for 2-3 months to work at the company HQ for training. In an ever more globalized economy, people no longer work for the same company their entire career, so there is a turnover indicating that some of the workforce live here for 2-10 years, and then move on to other opportunities. Naturally, the situation is the same for the students that attend courses at the university college and technical vocational school. The majority of the students live locally, but some still commute from surrounding cities, and after 3-5 years most of them leave to pursue their careers elsewhere. Seeing that the industry I have mentioned are world-class companies within maritime, subsea, automotive, defence and aerospace industries, it should come as no surprise that a vast amount of capital and information flows through the city every year. I am not sure about the exact number, but we are talking billions of euro each year. Examples of information flow could the production schedules, technical specifications, orders, video conferences and technical support. A lot of this information is also kept as stock on hard drives, paper and tapes. Together, these constitute some of the stocks and flows I consider important for, and within, the city of Kongsberg. One change that would have great benefit on the area would be to reduce the environmental impact of the commuters who in large drive here in petrol/diesel cars. Advances in technology (electric/hydrogen cars) and infrastructure (more efficient roads and public transport) could reduce emissions, as well as the level of noise and length of ques et cetera. Another great change would be the shift in application of the knowledge towards sustainable solutions. This has to some extent already started with projects within autonomous vehicles (and fish farms), control systems for hybrid drivetrains, wind energy and more. PS! I have NOT taken this picture! It has been taken from the website of the Kongsberg Group and is for illustrative purposes in this exercise only.