Education is considered one of the main drivers of welfare in society. However, countries in the world follow different paths when creating basic human capabilities, many of them not in the right direction. Linear extrapolation is still widely utilized to predict future behavior based on statistics like the Primary Completion Rate. This paper presents a dynamic model of primary education as a first step to understand the structure and behavior of educational systems and as an alternative way to extrapolate outcomes of this and other relevant key indicators, like the Gross Enrollment Rate. The model is calibrated for the case of Nicaragua.
It has long been thought that simulation could be used to design Command and Control (C2) systems, but simulations benefits have not matched their promise. Instead Enterprise Architecture Planning (EAP) tools have become ascendant in the design of C2 systems, though problems remain. EAP tools break down proposed systems into their low-level, constituent parts and place them into sophisticated relational databases. The resulting architectures however do not yield an intuitive sense of whether the proposed system actually solves the motivating problem. Consequently, fundamental conceptual issues continue to emerge deep into the design process. This study proposes using simulation early in the design process to envision the total system and avoid problems by generating requirements and metrics early in the design process. Issues regarding an Air Force Air Operations Center (AOC) are explored, most notably flow of control and the coordination of sensor, decision, and operator assets.
The objective of this study is to explore the factors that influence the quality of group learning and group effectiveness in organizations. Learning enables groups to acquire new skills, improve processes, find new ways of working, and enhance their decision-making process. However, group learning is affected by a set of structural, cognitive and interpersonal factors, which may foster or hinder the engagement of group members in learning-oriented activities. This study regards work groups as complex social systems and suggests that the explanation of the quality of learning and the effectiveness of a group lies in the interrelations of these factors. Existing research on group learning tends to follow an input-process-output approach; in contrast, this study offers a system dynamics model to explore the intricate relationships that arise from the factors such as group dynamics and leader behavior and that influence the outcomes of a work group. Although the model is highly aggregated, the simulation results can improve our understanding of the interrelations of key factors that influence group learning and effectiveness and farther the path for future research using system dynamics to study work groups as complex systems.
Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) is the fastest-growing market in the United States. VOIP technology provides telephone-like service without the restrictions of telecommunication regulations. State governments fear that more calls traveling over Internet protocol (IP) enabled phone services will impact on the heavily-taxed fixed line phone service, which means less tax revenue to support crucial public services. However, states are struggling with how to tax VOIP services and reduce the impact of VOIP development. In this paper, we build a system dynamics model to gain insight into interactions between the VOIP market, traditional phone market, and tax policy. Two tax policy tests reviewed in this paper show tax policy does not significantly affect market competition. In addition, we show government is able to collect sufficient funds when applying new tax policy. We believe the model can help policy makers find a better way to collect maximum tax revenue with less impact on the market.
Market and technology changes have brought about new characteristics of product development. One of the most significant changes from the traditional to the new paradigm is the change from sequential and collocated development processes to concurrent and distributed processes. Although some researchers have built models of development processes and product development performance, most of these studies are about collocated development projects where the coordination between tasks is not explicitly studied. Consequently, there is a need to model the relationships between development processes and project cycle time in the distributed context, with special attention to the coordination between tasks. With the support of a design company, we developed and validated the model with data from mobile phone projects.
Compared with many preventable epidemics, how did a relatively insignificant disease like SARS develop into an international scare? This article describes the application of system dynamics to understand the SARS epidemic in Beijing. The powersim model simulates the structure of transmission dynamics and factors that impact the epidemic. Here, the probable impacts of changes in the system delays, including delays to quarantine, delays of disease diagnose, and the authorities epidemic information transmitting delays, are discussed. The model aims to present detailed understanding of delayed feedback mechanisms inherent to eliminate the misperceptions of basic dynamics, and then to design high leverage policies for preventing SARS. The article concludes that an open and transparent public information system is the most powerful weapon to curb SARS panics. The governments prompt epidemic information feedback system and relatively instant strong quarantine policies have substantial impacts on containing SARS epidemic.
This article intends to conceptualize the problem of low interagency collaboration in implementing local social welfare policies into a system dynamics model. This conceptualized model is introduced to explore the possible factors facilitating and hindering interagency collaboration between Department of Social Welfare (DSW) of city government and Social Affairs Section (SAS) of district office in both Taipei City and Kaohsiung City of Taiwan. The model combines insights from policy implementation theory, qualitative data from interviews with DSW and SAS staffs, and system dynamics literatures. Although this model is not yet formulated, several insights have been obtained. This study finds that the institutional design has made cooperation between two agencies difficult. Such an interagency relationship is reluctant compliance rather than partnership. This article argues that a homogeneous realization of the cooperation pattern among implementation participants is necessary for building effective interagency relationships in policy implementation.
We are attempting to create an agent based System Dynamics model of sustainable organizational change. A framework is proposed for comparing the experience of sustainable organizational change as a means of gathering other experiences to help create the model. A significant sustainable organizational change was created at BP's Lima refinery using The Manufacturing Game that was created at DuPont using a System Dynamics model of manufacturing reliability. While this change at BP Lima has survived for over 10 years, two changes of ownership and four sets of management, the changes at DuPont and another BP asset only lived 7 years and 1 year before losing the momentum of the change. At the conclusion of this talk, we will have a panel discussion on the reasons for sustainability with audience participation.
By addressing the need for organizational change, The Manufacturing Game(r) has enabled manufacturing facilities around the world to vastly improve their reliability practices, resulting in enormous gains in a short period of time. Our unique, integrated approach, based on a System Dynamics model, helps organizations realize their full potential by encouraging front-line workers to better understand their role and take responsibility for their performance as it relates to the functionality of the entire plant. This bottom-up approach to organizational change has been effective at not only improving reliability, but more importantly, sustaining improvement. Over 27,000 people from companies like DuPont, BP, Honda, Whirlpool and ExxonMobil have used The Manufacturing Game(r) to reduce failures and lower costs. The game is a board game played with poker chips, play money, and dice. It is a fun way to learn as many have experienced playing the beer game.