Online Content

1. Franco, Douglas, "Policy Design in Oscillating Systems"

Type:
Document
Date Created:
1990
Collection:
System Dynamic Society Records
Collecting Area:
University Archives
Collection ID:
ua435
Parent Record(s):
23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, e3ebd4855fa658877b17f518e29a6ac9, and 386b7d5fcd17a644199db727913a7a7a
Thumbnail Path Ss:
/downloads/tm70nd707?file=thumbnail
System Modified Dtsi:
2020-01-02T18:44:24Z
Description:
Policy design is a key issue in System Dynamics. It consists in the introduction of changes into the system, in order to track the objectives trajectories. Those changes are either numerical or structural. Oscillations require more structural than numerical changes.Oscillatory systems are usually undesirable because of the ups and downs they bring into the system components. For instance, the labor instability in the Labor Backlog model. (Lyneis 1980, pp 182-210).Oscillations have been found very insensitive to numerical changes in the parameters (Graham(1977)); but, they have been found very sensitive to changes in the sign, and presence of them. Where presence denotes changes from zero to something. Therefore, the design of effective policies to control oscillations is a problem that goes beyond the Classical Optimal Control Theory of nonlinear systems (Coyle 1985), and it belongs to the Structural Control Theory. However, the Optimal Control Theory is a valuable tool to model the control structure. (Ozvern; Cuneyt; Sterman J., 1989, pp 130 - 147), (Keloharu 1982).In this paper, some guiding principles for policy design in oscillatory systems are presented. The construction of the management structure is illustrated.Two classical models: Labor- Backlog and the version of Kondratieff cycles presented by (Mosekilde; Rasmussen; Sterman (1985)), serve as prototypes to try the proposed principles on.