Online Content

  • Brooke, Kathleen, "The Momentum Of Success: The Role of Construction in the Thailand Economic Boom"

    Type:
    Document
    Date Created:
    1995
    Collection:
    System Dynamic Society Records
    Collecting Area:
    University Archives
    Collection ID:
    ua435
    Parent Record(s):
    b83f2ce2912343b559f967dd985da515, 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, and 12420ec6bd5f758d2b4dea59aabd75a9
    Description:
    Construction freezes the ratio of industrial to housing area (Forrester, 1969), becoming visible, measurable, evidence of structural change. The Momentum of Success documents economic activities of the construction sector during the Thailand economic boom. An important research protocol was the gathering of both qualitative data, with interview of 75 leaders of industry and government concerning decision-making factors experienced during the boom. The database was analyzed by three system dynamicists as well as by the disciplines of psychology, construction economics, and statistics. The results reveal three patterns of strategic action, with suggested future competencies for business and government in regions undergoing rapid development.

  • Bianchi, Carmine with Habib Sedehi, "Dynamic Modeling for "Products Portfolio" Management and New Products Launching"

    Type:
    Document
    Date Created:
    1995
    Collection:
    System Dynamic Society Records
    Collecting Area:
    University Archives
    Collection ID:
    ua435
    Parent Record(s):
    b83f2ce2912343b559f967dd985da515, 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, and 12420ec6bd5f758d2b4dea59aabd75a9
    Description:
    The paper aims to sketch a dynamic model in order to support decisions for the allocation of financial (i.e. cash flow provided by current sales) and human resources to Marketing and R&D policies, in order to better manage "product portfolio" and new products launching in an industrial firm. The working hypothesis from which the paper stems is to consider that the strategic control for launching new products and monitoring the path of the old ones along their life-cycles is not only possible through the use of accounting models, but also through dynamic models. Both kind of models indeed can be useful in "product portfolio" management; however, each of them may better satisfy different purposes. More particularly, accounting models (i.e.: those which are mainly based on General Ledger data) may better support some cognitive purpose regarding the management of each product separately without taking in "account" the interrelation influence between new and old products. On the other hand, the use of dynamic model, which is mainly based on non-accounting data, may particularly enable to: improve management learning of the system (as a whole) to be handled; implement a strategic control sub-system of resource allocation to product, drawing more on mental models, personal, personal experience and intuition of the entrepreneur and of management than on accounting data; improve an inter-functional and inter-divisional approach and so a better understanding of trade-off among financial, marketing, production, R&D subsystems and though decisions on "product portfolio" management; point out the different levers on which management may act and evaluate the different effects they may produce in the short and in the long term, so to assess the several possible consequences of managerial decision on the product life-cycle; better evaluate the medium/long term effects of product discretionary costs (Advertising, R&D, Education, etc.) on product cash flows. This may lead to a more integrated monitoring and understanding of the paths that different products may run along their cycle. The above said working hypothesis will empirically be tested in a medium-sized wine producer firm.

  • Bianchi, Carmine, "An Educational Dynamic Model for Net Working Capital Management in a Trading Wholesale Firm"

    Type:
    Document
    Date Created:
    1995
    Collection:
    System Dynamic Society Records
    Collecting Area:
    University Archives
    Collection ID:
    ua435
    Parent Record(s):
    b83f2ce2912343b559f967dd985da515, 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, and 12420ec6bd5f758d2b4dea59aabd75a9
    Description:
    The purpose of this paper is to sketch a dynamic model which may be useful to improve net working capital (NWC) management. This subject is commonly studied through the use of accounting models, which are mainly based on General Ledger data.

  • Banerjee, Souvik with Mohit Junja and Pratap K. J. Mohapatra, "IGRASP-A System Dynamics Software Package With Automatic Code Generation Facility"

    Type:
    Document
    Date Created:
    1995
    Collection:
    System Dynamic Society Records
    Collecting Area:
    University Archives
    Collection ID:
    ua435
    Parent Record(s):
    b83f2ce2912343b559f967dd985da515, 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, and 12420ec6bd5f758d2b4dea59aabd75a9
    Description:
    In this paper, we describe the feature of IGRASP (Interactive Graphic Simulation Package), a software package developed by the authors, which helps in developing and simulation system dynamic model and which has the facility of automatically developing codes for system dynamic models from their flow diagrams. The package integrates the following four modules :(1) The graphic user-interface module, (2) The automatic code generation module, (3) The simulation module, and (4) The output module. The key to the automatic code generation lies in the dimensional matching of the variable for which the code is generated and the set of variables and parameters which influenced it.

  • Bajpai, Anil K. with Phillip C.T. Wiley, "Dynamic Model of Purchasing Quality"

    Type:
    Document
    Date Created:
    1995
    Collection:
    System Dynamic Society Records
    Collecting Area:
    University Archives
    Collection ID:
    ua435
    Parent Record(s):
    b83f2ce2912343b559f967dd985da515, 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, and 12420ec6bd5f758d2b4dea59aabd75a9
    Description:
    The importance of quality costs and benefits is sometimes not fully recognized by industrial managers, Quality costs money. Industrial managers recognize this and tend to be afraid of spending on quality. But, quality also earns money. Industrial managers may need to be convinced of this fact. Unfortunately, existing publications on the subject do not encourage investment for higher quality. Most of the models about quality improvement costs and even about the cost of achieving the desired level of quality fail to incorporate the benefits of improved quality. This paper describes a model of purchase quality costs and benefits. The purchase quality costs elements are drawn from various standard sources such as the British Standards and American Society of Quality Control (ASQC) publications on purchase quality. The benefits from investing for purchase quality are taken from recently published case studies and reports as well as from our own experiences. The elements of quality related activities of a purchase department are -review of purchase order, capability survey of suppliers and purchase planning. The contribution of each element, starting from estimation of loses due to inadequate purchase quality through to prevention of poor quality are isolated and linked dynamically so that costs and benefits are demonstrated through time. The purchase quality costs and benefits model is developed using the system dynamics modelling approach, and simulated using a computer software package, 'Professional DYNAMO Plus'. The simulated results demonstrate the extent to which prevention investment in purchasing is justified by future earning. It is felt that the model can be a significant addition to course material for training programmes of purchase managers. It allows the user to explore the consequence of different levels, type and timing of investment on profit performance and the delays before profits are increased. It is hoped that the model will serve as useful tool for decision-makers, encouraging them to invest in improvement-related activities.

  • Aslam, Javaid with Khalid Saeed, "Electricity Conservation in Domestic Sector of Pakistan: A System Dynamics Approach"

    Type:
    Document
    Date Created:
    1995
    Collection:
    System Dynamic Society Records
    Collecting Area:
    University Archives
    Collection ID:
    ua435
    Parent Record(s):
    b83f2ce2912343b559f967dd985da515, 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, and 12420ec6bd5f758d2b4dea59aabd75a9
    Description:
    This paper describes the dynamics of supply and demand, price and pilferage, and resources and need of electricity conservation in the Domestic Sector of Pakistan. The dynamic hypothesis of the model is described. Then explanation of system behaviour, through model simulation, is given. The system dynamics treatment of the feedback loops is contrasted with the treatment found in most electric utilities of the world in general and of Pakistan in particular. The flexibility of the technique was extensively utilized in policy analysis and 22 policies were studied, out of which 11 are discussed in this paper. It also shows that electricity conservation is a very complex socio-economic environment, a more complex issue than conservation itself, rather moral than economic, and is not very much in the control of utilities alone. The study provided many insight, e.g. pricing policies are not the cause if the problem, increase in income level may not alleviate pilferage of electricity, conservation may be possible with pilferage control and certain incentives, and resource allocation needs social attention.

  • Aoki, Toshiaki with Hajime Inamura, "An Urban Growth Modeling Based On Urban Attraction"

    Type:
    Document
    Date Created:
    1995
    Collection:
    System Dynamic Society Records
    Collecting Area:
    University Archives
    Collection ID:
    ua435
    Parent Record(s):
    b83f2ce2912343b559f967dd985da515, 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, and 12420ec6bd5f758d2b4dea59aabd75a9
    Description:
    There are two main current of urban growth modeling. One is a traditional synthetic growth model using System Dynamics(SD). The other is a regional science model which can determine the location of industry and residence based on micro economics. Although this study basically uses the framework of SD, the principles of micro economics and an aggregated behavior model are introduced in some part in order to make the urban growth models more reliable. The model has four traditional sectors, such as industry sector, population sector, land sector and worker sector. In addition to them, there is a crucial addition of the migration sector which predicts the migration intended for Sendai, Tokyo and other part of Tohoku. Migration based on urban attraction is determined using real data based on an individual utility concept and a multiple regression analysis. The model is applied to Sendai Metropolitan Area for coming 100 years.

  • Akkermans, Henk, "Quantifying the Soft Issues: A Case Study in the Banking Industry"

    Type:
    Document
    Date Created:
    1995
    Collection:
    System Dynamic Society Records
    Collecting Area:
    University Archives
    Collection ID:
    ua435
    Parent Record(s):
    b83f2ce2912343b559f967dd985da515, 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, and 12420ec6bd5f758d2b4dea59aabd75a9
    Description:
    Quantification of causal models that contain many so-called “soft” variables is often problematic because so few “hard” data are available to calibrate the model. This paper describes a case study in which different techniques were used to qualify a causal model that contained a number of such soft variables, such as “level of expected customer irritation”, or “effort required to reach branch office”. The case study itself concerned the development of a decision-support system to assess branch office viability of a medium-sized bank. The specifics techniques used for quantification are viability for a medium-sized bank. The specific techniques used for quantification are part of the standard “tool set” of the Participative Modelling (PBM) Method, the synergistic blend of system dynamics and group knowledge elicitation techniques developed by the author in a series of six case studies, of which was the fifth.

  • Zahn, Erich with Jurgen Greschner, "Strategic Evalution of Flexible Assembly Systems-Combining Hard and Soft Decision Criteria"

    Type:
    Document
    Date Created:
    1995
    Collection:
    System Dynamic Society Records
    Collecting Area:
    University Archives
    Collection ID:
    ua435
    Parent Record(s):
    23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 6214ef14bd960d7be5cd8a816a71dc52, and 12420ec6bd5f758d2b4dea59aabd75a9
    Description:
    The evaluation of investments in flexible assembly system lacks of an appropriate methodology. First a brief review of decision making process regarding complex investments is given. Such decisions have to be made in the tension of hard and soft decision criteria which often produce a dilemma for the decision maker: Considering only short-term effects in terms of hard criteria will usually kill investments proposals. In contrast managers feel the need for the investment but have difficulties to justify their intuitive insights. As a possible solution a System Dynamics based approach is proposed to bridge the gap between rational and intuitive judgment. The approach combines qualitative and quantitative criteria by using a computer-aided step-by-step modelling concept.

  • Wolstenholme, Eric F., "Systems Thinking, System Dynamics"

    Type:
    Document
    Date Created:
    1995
    Collection:
    System Dynamic Society Records
    Collecting Area:
    University Archives
    Collection ID:
    ua435
    Parent Record(s):
    23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, 6214ef14bd960d7be5cd8a816a71dc52, and 12420ec6bd5f758d2b4dea59aabd75a9
    Description:
    This paper attempts to build a coherent picture of the way in which various system problem solving methodologies relate to one another. The work builds on the discussion and views expressed at the 1994 System Dynamics Conference that held at Stirling and expressed in the special edition of the System Dynamics Review entitled "System Thinkers, System Thinking". The underlying premises, assumptions and terminology of a number of such approaches are reviewed, contrasted and summarized. It is argued that, in philosophical and academic terms, System Thinking should be considered as a total framework which subsumes all system approaches to understanding human activity. Further, that there exists a range of System Thinking methodologies which can defined and contrasted by positioning them dependent on the degree of vagueness (to be relevant) and their degree of rigour (to be meaningful). It also suggested that their base position may shift dependent on their area of application. It is hoped that this paper or a derivative of it might be used as a reference by practitioners to explain to end-point users if system methods how their own approached fits into a wider and integrated framework.