Regardless of their size, software firms search for better methods to improve the delivery of their projects. The SEI Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is one available framework employed to assist in improving this process. The challenge of identifying the benefits associated with implementation of CMM Level 2 practices for the smaller software development firm is the main focus of this research. The objective is to evaluate the impact of each key process area of CMM 2 on productivity, product quality and ability to meet deadlines. A simulation model is designed to help researchers in software development, and management teams in SMEs, understand the impact of alternative management policies and practices according to CMMD. The results indicate that the CMMs software quality assurance process area has a sizeable impact on productivity and that all CMM process areas impact scheduling activities. The process areas associated with project management (software project planning and software project tracking) have very little impact on product quality as opposed to the other process areas with impacts more substantial on this performance measure. The analysis of scenarios indicates that the adoption of CMM2 practices based on requirements management yields more positive results than policies based on project management.
This paper describes a laboratory experiment to study cyclical behaviour of electricity prices in deregulated electricity markets. We observe investment decisions in markets with five-producers, linear demand, and constant marginal costs. The experiment has a four year investment lag and the electricity generating capacity has a life time of 16 years. Oscillatory behaviour results in investment activity and prices. The cyclical tendency is stronger than in previous experimental studies with only one and two period investment lags. Average prices are closer to competitive equilibrium than in previous experiments. The results are consistent with bounded rationality theory; a simple heuristic produces fluctuations similar to those observed when applied in a simulation model. Hence, the results corroborate assumptions made in previous simulation studies.
We explore how the dynamics of regime-changing insurgencies are influenced by a governments legitimacythat is, the popular acceptance of the governing regime as appropriate, proper, and just. Based on the theories of political and social science as well as case studies of insurgencies, we model legitimacy as a stock. Government actionsas they are perceived by the populacecan increase or decrease this stock. For example, the government can accumulate legitimacy by building roads, flood control systems, or other infrastructure. It can also create and maintain educational infrastructure that can, with long delays, shape the very categories of popular thought so that the people interpret government actions in a positive manner. In contrast, insurgent organizations use violence and propaganda to seek to decrease the stock of government legitimacy. For example, insurgent violence not only physically destroys government forces and infrastructure but also demonstrates that the government cannot guarantee security of the people, thus undermining confidence in the government. We simulate the model to provide a check on the internal consistency of the proposed relationships as well as their consistency with historically observed dynamic behavior. Through this research, we hope to integrate historical insights with organizational studies of legitimacy and extend them by explicitly including the effects of delays and nonlinearities in order to illuminate the points of leverage for addressing insurgencies.
In this paper several of the early workers in the field of system dynamics tell both a consensus story of how the System Dynamics Society came into being over 25 years ago and some of the early history of the Society itself. Several slightly different versions of this story have been told over the past several years and we thought it would be fun to involve a broader group in this kind of modified oral history project. The paper is based on a series of separate recollections that have been posted in full on the web at http://www.systemdynamics.org/history/oral_history.htm
Keywords: System Dynamics Society, history, founding, volunteering, Dynamica, constitution, early conferences
Vennix (1996), Andersen et al (1997), Richardson and Andersen (1995), and Andersen and Richardson (1997) have called for a greater sharing of knowledge and experience in group model building (GMB) projects to disseminate innovative practices and to increase the effectiveness of products being delivered to our clients. This poster responds to that call by describing two scripts based on system dynamics group model-building practices that have been used in strategy workshops using Group Explorer.
Eden and Ackermann (1998) have developed a workshop-based approach for the rapid development of strategic options working directly with client teams. In its most recent manifestation, this approach uses the Group Explorer software to facilitate rapid mapping, modeling, and analysis of issues, goals, and distinctive competencies into well-integrated business plans, livelihood schemes, and statements of strategic intent (Ackermann and Eden, 2005)
Recently, Howick et al (2006) demonstrated how scenarios maps developed in this tradition of strategic analysis and modeling could be usefully integrated with system dynamics models to improve overall impact and value being delivered to client groups. Andersen et al (2006) have presented a curriculum for co-teaching Eden and Ackermanns (1998) approach to strategy linked to Brysons (2004) approach to leadership and strategy development as well as key elements of system dynamics and systems thinking.
A pandemic is likely to occur in the near future, and it could cause significant disruptions in society creating deaths, despair, fear, and monetary cost, among other losses. Firms would also be negatively affected by a pandemic through loss of revenue, profit, employees, and even through a reduction in the value of the business itself. Especially for service-intensive businesses, employee absenteeism is a key factor that impacts firms when a pandemic occurs, hampering various business operations. In this paper, we describe a system dynamics model that describes dynamics of workforce absenteeism resulting from a pandemic, and also effectiveness of corporate mitigation actions.
Many transportation agencies are experimenting with innovative contractual arrangements for the
procurement of construction, maintenance and operation of roads. They are changing from traditional
contracts that prescribe the kind of work that need to be done in a specific section of the network, to
more flexible contracts, increasing the contractors freedom to its maximum level, where the contractor
itself decide which section, when and what kind of work he will perform, with the only condition of
keeping a certain level of performance for a whole road network.
Advanced computer models have been developed that estimate what would be the resulting road
condition for given investment decisions and maintenance actions. Nevertheless it remains uncertain if
contractors are given the freedom: What trade-offs would they make? Will road quality decrease? Will
road agencies be able to monitor or control contractors?
Before all these choices and freedom are transferred to the private sector, it is urgent to develop a clear
view of the most important trade-offs that are now already made by the public authority. In order to
contribute to the building of this understanding this paper explores the issue of road condition and
some of the most the relevant and conflicting aspects of it.
This study investigates the issue of managing quality during production ramp-ups in high-tech supply
chains. It combines an in-depth case study of one particular high-tech supply chain setting with
insights from the recently-emerging literature on behavioral operations and synthesizes these two into
a system dynamics simulation model.
Model analysis suggests that isolated and intuitively appealing quality management policies are
likely to lead to suboptimal or even detrimental results. Of crucial importance is finding the balance
between ramping up production rates sufficiently fast to capture short-lived market demand and
avoiding to increasing production starts so high that workload levels in the supply chain move beyond
the tipping point. This means that when workloads become too high, the entire supply chain can get
bogged down in a vicious cycle of high workloads leading to low quality levels, which lead to high
rework levels and hence to even higher workloads.
Especially promising policies to be used in combination are, firstly, moderate production ramp-up
rates that turn out to generate more timely output than overly aggressive production ramp-ups.
Secondly, policies that leverage the expertise that can be gained from analyzing defective units that
cannot be repaired easily downstream, as these may yield knowledge regarding hidden quality issues
upstream
Paper describes an ongoing applied research project at KPN Telecom, the leading mobile and fixed
telephony operator in the Netherlands. The project describes is aimed at developing a collaborative
sales & operations planning business process at KPN that will support the ramp-up of new IP-based
service offerings through KPNs service supply network.
Paper discusses root causes for why coordinating capacity and sales ramp-ups in the various
stages of the chain is far more difficult in service than in manufacturing. Introduces workload as a key
organising concept in collaborative supply chain coordination during ramp-ups. Describes project
findings so far, which are still limited to conceptual simulation model development through group
model-building workshops. Subsequent project results will be incorporated in the paper as these
become available.
Over the last decade complexity theory in general, and Kaufmanns NK fitness landscape model in particular, have been very popular means of promoting evolutionary and prosessualistic approaches to strategic management. However, either in pure conceptual, or in more formal forms, these models assume rather naïve, memoryless and unrestricted by past choice strategy processes (organisational structure and decision making), i.e. they ignore the internal dynamics of the strategy-formulation system. In this paper, we demonstrate how system dynamics modelling can enrich the NK fitness landscape model so that these drawbacks are overcome, especially with respect to the way the fitness landscape is searched/walked. The resulting modelling framework becomes particularly useful for understanding strategic behaviours and assessing strategic flexibility under the assumption of resource-based competition as it allows the explicit modelling of the dynamics of assets accumulation and the complementarity and substitution effects among strategic decisions and actions towards resource and capability development for achieving higher fitness. We demonstrate our approach in the modelling of operations strategy as an emergent process of distributed decision making for capabilities development.