This paper formulates and analyzes a strategic model for Pakistan Railways. The objective of the model is to understand the potential consequences of investment strategies aimed at establishing operational and financial sustainability of the Pakistan Railways. The model replicates a wide range of inter-connected causal relationships between different factors to reflect the decision making process in the sectors including Rolling stock (passenger coaches and locomotives), Maintenance of Rolling stock, Tracks, Maintenance of Tracks, and Finance. The model incorporates how these sectors interact to each other over time. The model can be used for evaluating potential outcomes of individual and combinations of individual investment strategies implemented at different times. The conclusion derived from the model experimentations indicates that a better operational policy for the Pakistan Railways to improve its operational performance and financial sustainability would constitute expanding the track capacity with increased provision for maintenance capacity.
Upgrading Defence capability involves much more than acquiring new hardware such as weapons or aircraft. This paper demonstrates how system dynamics modelling was used to assist in planning and management of the introduction into service of a new generation multi-role helicopter type. It describes the challenges of managing resources; and the complex interrelationships between tasks such as the training of pilots and aircrew, conducting maintenance on the aircraft and the achievement of defined levels of capability to conduct military operations. Whilst the modelling task focused initially on the management of human resources, it soon became obvious that complex dynamic problems are best addressed using a top-down approach, to achieve optimisation at the system level rather than attempting to optimise sub-systems. The modelling approach exploited trusted, functional modules of system dynamics structure rather than ab initio model construction. How this aided model construction and verification is described.
This paper extends recent systems approaches to US health reform to the international sphere and explicitly represents the political and economic dimensions of health policy. The worldviews of health care as an industry with user as consumer, a profession with user as patient, and a societal right with user as citizen. Historical institutionalism and agency theory in health policy are represented and integrated, with focus on the extent and interaction of hierarchical, market and network control mechanisms on key system performance goals. This work can inform simulating international comparisons of health systems evolution and explicitly representing their strife of less tangible political and vested interests, in order tounderstand, plan and test the acceptability of proposed health reforms in various countries and regions KEYWORDS: Health Policy, Health System Dynamics, Health Politics, Health Economics.
Chinas economic transition from a planned soviet economy to a socialist market economy has resulted in substantial changes to its health system, with a significant impact on health outcomes and equity of access. This paper extends recent US health reform system dynamics work to synthesise the China health reform story in causal loop diagrams and illustrate it with available trend data. The analysis is based on translated papers from a high level Chinese Government think tank to plan health system changes for the next Five Year Period (the Flourishing Society). Its main recoommendations include extending financial coverage, focus on upstream interventions (public health, prevention and common disease interventions), and strengthening government responsibility) This natural experiment can provide insights into the problems associated with transition from hierarchical to market control mechanisms and the linkage between the overall socio-economic context and health care. KEYWORDS: Health Policy Dynamics, China Health Reform, Socio-Economic Context
Our purpose with this work is to present and discuss an application of the System Dynamics method in a Brazilian agricultural company, discussing the challenges, benefits, problems and results of a consultancy project aimed to support the companys strategic and operational decisions. Using Group Model Building methodology and the software Ithink two models were built, and an important change in the planning process was implemented. The first model, representing the production and debt structure of the Company was created to support long term investment decisions. The second model showing the Companys financial structure in detail was created to support the annual planning, budgeting activities and to test commercial decisions. The results achieved show how System Dynamics can be used to improve the decision making process and to support the management and the owner learning process.
Economy is dynamic and changing. One of the biggest problems with the introductory economics courses is that they are too static. System Dynamics can help us in teaching dynamic aspects of economy. Supply Demand World (SDW) is an Interactive Learning Environment (ILE) to teach introductory microeconomics based on the system thinking and system dynamics concepts. The paper presents the underlying system dynamics models used in the software as the base of the games and other teaching materials. It also introduces the teaching structure used in the software based on the learning theories discussed in the paper. Furthermore, the paper presents many unique features of the software and discusses how these features supports learners in developing a better understanding of the subject. An experiment conducted in a high school, to measure the teaching effectiveness of the software, shows that students worked with the software achieved much better results compared to the students did not work with the software in a similar test. The test was designed to measure students understanding of the basic system thinking, system dynamics and economics concepts.
This paper presents a preliminary exploration of the integration of social judgment theory and signal detection theory using system dynamics modeling as a means to increase understanding of the prototypical judgment-decision-action problem present in many systems and circumstances. This integration, by allowing the decomposition of both the judgment process and resulting outcomes, offers a unique framework to explore the fundamental mechanisms associated with learning dynamics using outcome feedback. The dynamic framework built incorporates judgment, decision making, and outcome-based feedback in an integrated model.
Political borders are controversial and contested spaces. In an attempt to better understand movement along and through political borders, we applied the metaphor of a membrane to look at how people, ideas, and things move through a border. More specifically, we employed this metaphor in a system dynamics framework to construct a computer model to assess legal and illegal migration on the US-Mexico border. Results from both quantitative and qualitative data searches were used to modify a 1977 border model to demonstrate the dynamic nature of illegal migration. Model runs reveal that current US-policies based on neo-classic economic theory have proven ineffective in curbing illegal migration, and that proposed enforcement policies are also likely to be ineffective. The modeling supports views expressed in the current literature suggesting that demographic and economic changes within Mexico are likely to slow illegal migration by 2060 with no special interventions made by either government.
There have been a number of articles describing the desire, by the system dynamics computer modeling community, to establish a common model exchange language (XL) for system dynamics models. Contrary to the seeming increase in the common good resulting from such an exchange language, as of today, none of the major vendors has stepped forward to implement this exchange language. We propose to demonstrate, within a strategy framework, the consequences of implementing the XL and the reasons why the apparent disinterest shown by the software community in the XL is intrinsic to markets of this type.
This paper presents a model providing a feedback structure that clarifies the nature of the reinforcing processes involved in the development of trust through collaborating in a project. The feedback structure is grounded in data from a project where a prototype system was built, and it is consistent with the literature on trust, collaboration and diffusion of innovation. Four feedback processes are identified at the core of the development of trust and collaboration, two of them reinforcing in nature, and two of them counterbalancing in nature. Experiments with the model suggest that the initiation of a collaborative project with a new partner has the potential to have a slow start because of the lack of knowledge about the other parties. The initiation of the collaboration could be accelerated by shaping expectations of benefits of the project or by reducing the perception of risk associated with the project.