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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:
- America's vertically integrated electric utilities will soon face the prospect of direct competition. Initially, this will occur at the "upstream" side of their business to provide the supply of electric power to the utility's system. Later, the "downstream", retail side of the business will open up, especially for large industrial and commercial customers. After many years as a monopoly with essentially cost-plus pricing, competition will pose a significant threat to these high cost utilities. Fortunately, unlike previously deregulated industries, electric utility have a number of years in which to prepare themselves for competition, and the experiences of their forerunners to guide their preparation. This paper first present an analysis of the outlook of a typical, but hypothetical, eclectic utility in the face of such competition, and then examines a range of options for preparing for a competitive environment. These analysis show that the difference in present value to shareholders between successful and unsuccessful strategies can be as much as $150 million (20%0 over a 10-year period, and $ 1 billion (40%) over a 25 -year period.
-
- 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:
- Many firms take actions which affect their competitive position without considering the longer-term strategic consequences of those decisions. This is particularly true of many recent downsizing initiatives, which have tended to be tactical in the sense of being reactive, focusing on pieces of the business, and with short time horizons. This paper uses examples from a dynamic simulation model of a telecommunication company to illustrate the dangers of such a "tactical" approach which is anticipatory, holistic, and long-term in its viewpoint.
-
- 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:
- One of the largest growth areas in telecommunications is global business communications. In today's global economy, companies want to communicate across the globe through a single service provider, in a seamless manner between all their locations. For this to happen the service provider must operate in markets which have differing cultures, regulatory frameworks and levels of competition. We present here a system dynamics model developed using the IThink software package, which investigate some of the major issues of global service provision. The world is segmented into four regions within which there can be distinctly different conditions. The model captures the complexity of obtaining a customer in a region and providing a global service in time scale which will satisfy the requirement for connectivity between world-wide locations. The degree to which customer's requirement can be met will be dependent on the presence the provider has throughout the world. Initial results indicate that the perception of a provider’s service has a strong influence on market share within its home region and also the other region of the world. However, this can lead to scenarios where a strategy to improve service offering without due regard to provisioning constraints can lead to a loss of market share. The modeling activity delivered three major benefits: it has provided valuable insight into a key telecommunications markets; it has demonstrated the applicability of system dynamics to telecommunications strategy, and; it has highlighted areas for development which will provide future value.
-
- 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:
- In the framework of designing programming environments based on the paradigm of autonomous agent systems, we conceived an interaction model based on the notions of charge and force. In a multi-agent system, an agent is defined as autonomous entity composed of an agent's kernel and charges forming an envelope around this kernel. An agent perceives the other agents exclusively through sensors attached to his charges. Therefore all the dynamics of the system is governed by charges. The introduced interaction model supports two kinds of dynamics: an internal dynamics obtained by changing inside an agent, and an external dynamics obtained by the agents movement through the environment. These dynamics enable the agents to vary jointly the forces acting on them and the forces they generate.
-
- 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:
- Since 1990, South Africa has been undergoing a paradigm shift from authoritarian rule to a new democratic society. Typically, the process of transition has been conditioned and shaped by historical circumstances which are unique to South Africa but nevertheless, shaped and patterned in predictable ways. The building industry has an important role to play in the political transition process, basically because of the need for reconstruction and socio-economic development, giving rise to the struggle between the contending visions of redistribution and growth. All the contending visions for the new South Africa identify the four inner-related objectives of the need for growth, for equity, for political participation and for stability. The affordable housing market has an aura of destiny and paradox about it. On the one hand, the housing backlog of some 1,14-million units appears to be an unsurmountable problem and on the other, it provides an amazing and historically important opportunity. Through the provision of affordable housing at scale for the under-privileged, many of the objectives of a new South Africa can be achieved, in creating massive employment in redistribution income, in wealth-creation and in promoting stable family life, which underpins a healthy society and promotes nation-building. Nevertheless, the affordable housing problem is bedeviled by many complex issues which defy simple analysis and which require a systems approach. In the search for leverage, a systems model, using the ithink soft-ware package was developed of the building industry in South Africa. It related activity per market segment, to affordability, the need for and effect of subsides, employment creation, housing stock and backlog and home-ownership. The model challenged and clarified the mental models of participants in a scenario building process, identified the major obstacles and the major leverage for a trend-break in the building and for breaking the housing log jam. In the model, it was possible to link hard data such as building activity, gross domestic product, housing backlog and need, home-ownership, employment and subsides. with 'soft issues' such as the need for leadership and vision and for establishing a Housing Accord. The Systems Model enabled the participants to see the impact of alternative strategies over a 20 year planning horizon. Sensitivity analysis was applied to varying levels of subsides demonstrating the impact on the housing backlog and building industry activity. The “ithink” strategic modeling package provides an extremely useful tool in scenario building and in challenging the mental models of leading influences and decision-makers in the building industry. In particular, it highlighted the need for a gradually phased increase (and timeous decrease) in affordable housing delivery, in order to avoid "over shoot" and "over correction", with the potential of putting the system into dangerous fluctuation. In the scenario planning process, the use of the model information enabled some 60 participants in a Think Tank process, to obtain a much clearer view of the future of the building industry and to use the process in 'creating a memory of the future' and thus, to have some influence on housing policy and strategy in South Africa.
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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 the scenario generator (SaGa) tool that prepares "plausible" futures for use in developing - or testing - managerial plans. SaGa generated adaptive, written scenarios based upon some of the power systems thinking. SaGa produces scenarios from the combination of textual and numeric values that are linked into cascades of formulae or decision tables. It provides a written description of the implications of using different sets of input values in a model of complex systems behavior. Managers with preferences for verbal material can use these scenarios to consider what preparations should be made to achieve their preferred future.
-
- 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:
- Over the past decade, the Australian labor Government has cut the size of the Australian federal budget sector from some 32% to around 24 % of Gross Domestic Product. This cut in public sector intervention in the market-place has been achieved while the Government has continued to focus on achievement of its social justice objectives. Central to those changes has been the Financial Management Improvement (FMIP), initiated in 1984 with the establishment of a small management reform team drawn from the department of Finance and the public service board. Fundamentally, the FMIP sought to effect a change in bureaucratic and government culture, shifting the prevailing paradigm from input accounting to output and outcomes management. In responding to this challenge, the FMIP unit in the Department of finance adopted a 'systems thinking' approach, initially using qualitative casual loops analyses and subsequently dynamic simulation modeling, to identify high value leverage points in bureaucratic government. processes. Qualitative and quantitative system dynamics modeling is now starting to be used in the broader policy advising areas of government. This paper presents an overview of key elements of the Australian federal public sector reforms from the perspective of systems thinking and summarizes significant recent uses of system dynamics modeling in public sector management and policy analysis.
-
- 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:
- In the perspective of formulizing abstractions as afundamental facet of cognition, we study knowledge in its relationship to thebiological substratum from which its outcomes. Our research is mainly founded on the works of F.J. Varela concerningthe autonomy of living systems (autopoiesis) and of S. Lupasco on antagonism.We show how autopoiesis brings a new enlightment upon knowledge, by turningrepresentation problems to organization problems and how the autopoieticdynamics of living systems leads to a new formulation of machine learning. By developing new internal dynamics, a systemdoes not learn to know its environment, but to adapt himself to it.It follows that modeling an autopoietic system requires to focus, no more onsharing of semantic universes between a system and its environment, but onstructural models producing behavioral regularities of the system in answer toenvironmental perturbations. Autopoiesisseems therefore more suited for developing adaptive and complex systems,especially when an exhaustive specification of the operating factors isprohibitive, as well as for providing a unified framework for modelingcognition. Moreover it provides aparadigmatic foundation to the design of massively parallel system.
-
- 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:
- There seem to be several advantages in using System Dynamics modeling to understand the behavior of newly privatized industries. System dynamics models can develop insights on the possible evolution of the industry from public to private ownership and from protected to competitive markets. The implications for business strategy and for the regulatory framework can be examined under various scenarios. As part of the privatization of the UK electricity industry a spot market to clear the electricity market has been created. The main reason for the spot market is to set the half hourly price at which electricity is traded. A further aspect is that it allows the regulator to set incentives to increase or decrease the generating capacity according to what he believes is necessary in the long run. We have modeled capacity investment in this newly created industry in the basis of testing its theoretical design Our model focuses on how long term development of capacity utilization is likely to evolve, how much influence the regulator will have under the current regulatory framework, and how this framework should be modified to give the regulator more influence on the market to prevent cycles of over and under capacity.
-
- 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 system dynamics community has been active in developing model-supported cases studies, gaming simulations and management flight simulator for use in learning laboratories and student workshops. As multimedia environments are being introduced, system dynamics based learning tools are beginning to look increasingly like many commercially developed games. Developments within the commercial video game markets, including new mass storage media (CD-I, CD-ROM) and multimedia technologies have resulted in a host of new business and policy related games and simulations becoming available. In this paper, we examine the possibilities for using commercially available games in a system dynamics context. We demonstrate those opportunities through an example, SimCity, a well-known commercial strategy game. How can the system dynamics community contribute to these new exciting developments in the area of commercial edutainment products? How can we make use of the current interest in strategy games to get more people introduced to system dynamics?