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- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- This paper describes a system dynamics simulation model of the interrelationship among firms competing in the entertainment industry. The model integrates ideas from strategy design, organization design and new technology adoption to describe exactly how the diffusion process of new hardware and software technologies into the entertainment industry is changing the power and stability of syndication firms, the dynamic changes in the extant production capacity of TV networks, and the investment opportunity in basic cable network system operators. The economic organization and regulation of TV networks broadcasting vary substantially from country to country, but having a mixture of public private enterprise placed under the supervision of a government agency is a common arrangement. TV networks and affiliates in the United States represent a clear manifestation of government regulation. The granting of licenses and promulgation of rules pertaining to cross-media ownership enabled independently owned affiliates to carry regularly scheduled programming produced by the networks or by outside contractors. Except for news and sports programs, TV networks currently do not participate significantly in the ownership of production. Yet this situation has been changing through modification stemming form the financial interests and syndication rules presently in effect. A team of managers and planners from a group of syndicators met to discuss current events and the changing structure of the entertainment industry. Changes stem from the moves of major pay cable channels, TV networks, basic cable networks and system operators, each responding differentially to the diffusion of new signal-transmission technologies into their industry. A broad discussion culminated into a system dynamics simulation model of the interrelationships among firms competing in the entertainment market. The model produced new insights into the power and stability of syndication firms, the dynamic changes in the extant production capacity of TV networks, and the investment opportunities in basic cable and networks and cable system operators.
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- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- To maintain the standards set forth by the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), one thing a business school (B-school) must do is to maintain a certain proportion of tenured faculty members to students. The AACSB standards also affect the process of reviewing tenure track faculty members for promotion and tenure (P&T). Typically, tenure faculty members are considered more committed to enhancing the reputation of a B-school and of the AACSB through research and publications.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- This paper describes the work and experience gained by a team of senior managers using a systems thinking approach, to develop their own set of future scenarios, to support a realignment of strategy and the redesign of a worldwide exploration group of a major integrated oil company. The opportunity for this experience arose from a need to assess the diminishing returns produced during several years of overseas exploration activity. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, the entire petroleum industry has increased its search for reserves overseas. “...between 1988 and 1992, the world’s 234 largest publicly traded oil companies spent $157 billion on exploration and development overseas, 49% more than in the U.S.”, but diminishing results. In 1990, the industry discovered 148 barrels of oil outside the US for every 100 barrels it sold abroad; last year it added just 100 barrels of foreign reserves for ever 100 barrels sold, while the average cost of replacing crude surged 55% to $6.56 a barrel. Against this backdrop, the senior manager used a systems thinking approach to brainstorm the factors influencing the dynamics of the world oil and gas industry. From this process the group was able to develop a set of five distinctly different plausible futures that might develop. To test their group mental model for consistency, they develop a causal model of the industry and discovered that their five different futures all could be explained by a common model.
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- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- This article presents a model in System Dynamics, for the control of the Leishmaniasis. This proposal presents the interactions among the five subsystems that intervene in the transmission dynamics of the Leishmaniasis: insect population, human population, animal population, the environment and the control strategies. The parasite, the transmission personage, is defined as the element that determines the relationship among the subsystems that determines the epidemiological cycle. The indicated subsystems are separated at different levels and its dynamics is modeled through a set of 120 different equations involving the different reported parameters in the scientific literature. The resulting model permits to simulate the transmission with and without controls and to observe the efficiency by applying of those control policies. The simulation is performed using a home made software called EVOLUTION, in two different conditions: natural conditions or without controls and with controls, obtaining quantitative and qualitative results which were considered plausible by the experts. The set conformed by the software and then model could be considered a valuable tool for epidemiology research.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- This paper discusses the nature of generalized problems solving and its algorithmic-like properties. In the systems literature problem solving is usually discussed in relation to its methodological setting - for example, SSM may legitimately be regarded as a problem solving scheme. This paper explores what we believe to be the five basic cognitive elements or strategies involved in problem solving. An examination of these five strategies then suggests a way of understanding why particular methodologies have powerful problem solving power, and why explicit use of these five strategies within a methodology will result in an increased problem solving potential. Some of the ideas discussed here arose from studies into how knowledge engineers solved the problem of knowledge elicitation and representation. These studies were illuminating since the most common situation seemed to be that no real underlying strategy was employed and that the activity in essence was based on the chance plus experience. In other words when practitioners were asked what strategy they were using the most common answer was that they did not know but they could do it anyway. This form of knowledge is often called Tacit Knowledge - that is the sort of knowledge where we know what to do, but have no clear idea as to explaining how we do it.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- System Dynamics wee used for the first time to improve planning and budgeting in American higher education with a pioneering project launched in 1990 by staff of the Arizona Board of Regents to help the state of Arizona anticipate and prepare to meet rapidly growing enrollment demand over a twenty-years planning horizon. Then, the University of Houston System, building on the experience of Arizona, chose to use System Dynamics to help meet their goal of achieving greater diversity among their students and serve the higher education needs of a dramatically changing population in their metropolitan area. Though system dynamics was developed close to forty years ago at MIT and has widely used industry, it is new to the higher education. This paper first briefly describes the actual experiences of Arizona and Houston in developing and using the system dynamics models for planning purposes, and then highlights special features built into the models.
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- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- System Dynamics at the pre-college level, its time has come. English teachers have sufficient comfort with technology. Tools such as STELLA II and PowerSim have provided the broad-based language for communication and understanding. A recently awarded 3 year National Science Foundation grant, CC-STADUS (Cross-Curricular System Thinking and Dynamics Using STELL), is training 165 high school math, science, and social studies teachers in system modeling using STELLA II. Teachers develop some models within their curricular areas. Then Cross-curricular teacher teams are formed to design at least one large model and develop curricular materials around the model so it can be used immediately in their classes. The training is done by high school teachers and by speakers from industry who use modeling in their work. The teacher participants are responsible for sharing their knowledge and expertise with other faculty and with students in their classes. High school students are using systems concepts at various levels. At lower levels (especially with "at-risk" students) the teacher demonstrates how a model is designed and students manipulate the model and predict new behavior. At the middle level, students develop a model as a class activity under the direct guidance of the teacher. At the highest level, students select a topic of interest, formulate boundaries, work with an information resource person, and work with a modeling resource person to develop a model and present it to a class.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- The analysis of capacity levels and there location is of vital importance in the design and management of supply chains as it is commonly believed that capacity constraints exacerbate poor customer service levels. The inventory and order Based Production Control System (IOBPCS), often associated with "real life" production control system, is used as "company" building blocks for the dynamic simulation of a supply chain. Various combinations of capacity levels through the supply chain are implemented at each echelon in the form of a maximum order rate that can be placed on the production facilities. A strategy of maintaining a record of unfilled orders (backlog) at the production facility highlights a number of notable dynamic characteristics over and above normal dynamics of an unconstrained IOBPCS. There is an excess inventory build up even as production order backlog is being depleted. This is simply dealt with by effectively re-engineering the total business via integrating the company's overall inventory control policy with production. The new system is used to analyze the effect of capacity constraints within a three echelon one player supply chain. The inclusion of a non-linearity into the system leads to improved dynamic performance in some designs for the step change in sales and capacity constraint levels tested, but this does not mean improved consumer levels. The strategy examined to improve dynamic performance is the holistic setting of system parameters to improve the non-linear systems. The future direction for research and ideas for further improvement are also presented, where the simulation results indicate the need to closely monitor appropriate system variables such as inventory levels, and to incorporate them within more robust decision rules.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- The new Colombian construction makes heavy emphasis on issues related to decentralization and community participations. It intends to incorporate in Government the appropriate social actors to accomplish more effective administration. In this sense, definitions have to be made in relation to regional responsibilities in the area of Health, Education, Housing, Public Services, and Employment, in order to obtain the appropriate transferences of resources from the central Government to the communities. Laws on these issues are now being discussed in Congress. Preliminary results show how System Dynamics proves to be an appropriate methodology to evaluate resources needed, community participation and institutional performance. The model developed may be used as a training tool to help community leaders to understand the complexities involved in the decentralization process. The model incorporates behavioral patterns and at the same time provides system performance and effectiveness indications (Community participation and accomplishments).
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1994
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, c060552994c1527f70693734935660f1, and fe35db792b573af835d96e6eba4759cd
- Description:
- Infrastructure induced development is a process dominated by feedback in that it features the synthesis of demand and supply functions. For the demand function, we are seeking the infrastructure improvement requirement to accommodate a certain socioeconomic need; for the supply function we want to know the level of service obtained for a certain infrastructure improvement. The objectives of the project from which the paper is derived is to develop a methodology for generating models that can be used to by planners and decision makers as instrumentalities for making reliable estimates of the economic health and productivity benefits and of potential infrastructure investment, and for linking infrastructure investment, users benefits, and succeeding economics development to provide a basis for rational policy formation. The results is a methodology that permits one to answer the question: What would be the economic impact A, the social impact B, the demographic impact C, and the land-use impact D, the environmental impact E, and the users benefits F over geographic scale G for an infrastructure investment H at time T? The approach is illustrated at both the regional and national levels.