1994 INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM DYNAMICS CONFERENCE
The concept of Waste and its use in information system design
W Hutchinson
School of Management Information Systems
Edith Cowan University, Pearson Street
Churchlands, Perth
Western Australia 6018
Abstract
No system is 100% efficient and so by definition produces waste. Whilst the concept of waste and
waste minimisation is entrenched in the industrial systems sector eg with the Just In Time
philosophy, it is still not widely used in others such as business information systems. Waste is not
confined to material loss, but also to such things as time wasted, or to more intangible concepts such
as loss of morale. In fact, any unwanted system output is waste. The identification of all but the
most obvious of these by system designers can be difficult because they are designing the system
using their own perceptions of what is a "good" output and what is waste. Waste can be “in the eye
of the beholder". The definition of waste in all but simple systems can itself be a contentious issue.
One person's waste can be another's benefit.
The identification of waste can itself be illuminating if system methods are being used in resolving
issues where perceptions of the problem space are not agreed upon, ie “soft” problems. The "world
views" of the stakeholders in the problem can just as easily be identified by what they regard as waste
as it can from what is regarded as desirable. In fact, it can bring out entrenched biases more clearly.
Whilst most system techniques consider the expected and desired outputs of a system, few consider
the unwanted ones. The system itself is, of course, just a concept but the classification of waste can
identify paradigms which might otherwise have been hidden in the system definition.
Ata more concrete level, the design of information systems can greatly benefit from the identification
of unwanted outputs. Designers often become engrossed in productivity, ie expected outputs, but
rarely consider the detrimental effects of their system (although the detrimental effects of other
systems, eg the one to be replaced, are cited).
1994 INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM DYNAMICS CONFERENCE
Developing a Business Flight Simulator for Learning Organisations
Background
In the Autumn of 1992 a group of academics and UK busi set up a jum to research and
develop i to ‘ive work (CSCW). The consortium is
concerned with how to improve the performance of groups of managers, when they have available an
“intensely " work. The UK D of Trade and Industry initiated
a CSCW research programme, and out of the 37 proposals put forward, this consortium's bid ‘The
Business Flight Simulator’ (BFS) was one of eight projects accepted. The aim of this paper is to outline
the principles behind the BFS, its i and and the relationship with Systems
Dynamics concepts and software.
Historical perspective
From time immemorial, and certainly for the last 5000 years, managers at all levels have used groups
and teams for advisory purposes, for communications purposes, and for decision-making. What is
particularly striking about so many of the management meetings of today is that they take place with
rudimentary technology - flip charts, white boards and simple overhead projectors. Even the use of
computer-based presentations ‘scarcely moves further than the Victorian epidiascope technology. The
use of st to support group has scarcely p d the great majority of
management meetings.
The first major work in this area was carried out by Doug Englebart at the Stanford Research Institute
(SRD in the mid 1960's (Englebart, 1962). His project, d with the " of Human
Intellect", involved supporting meetings of a dozen or so white-collar workers with a mini-computer
based collaboration system Augment.
When Xerox set up its Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC) in 1970, it recruited many key staff from SRI.
It was therefore hardly surprising that when Xerox developed the world's first personal computer (the
Xerox Alto) in 1973, it very quickly became networked, using the early versions of Ethernet. This was
Version 1 of Personal Ci ing: essentially ive.
Version 2 of Personal Computing derived from the "home-brew” computing movement of the mid to
late 1970's, typified by the Apple 1 and Apple 2 computers. Unfortunately, when IBM launched its PC
in August 1981, it chose to go down the Version 2 route. This was an individualistic route, where there
was little or no conception of, or interest in, networking the PC.
Since it was the IBM PC that dominated the business desktop in the 1980's, and not the Xerox PC, this
commercial dominance of Version 2 has set back the whole area of computer supported group venns
in business by many years. Not only are there even today still signi
networking disparate PC-based products, a decade of primarily personal use of PC's has also created
work habits that are not geared to group use of IBM-compatible PC's.
So in onion the question of intensive computer support to managerial groups, there are two
les - one ical, one related to lack of a group perspective in use of computers
genetally.”
Microworlds, page 55
1994 INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM DYNAMICS CONFERENCE
Groupware
The general word to describe software for group use is "groupware" (Grief, 1989). There are a variety of
definitions which exist for this. One of the longest standing is that from two of the pioneers in using
computers for group work in the 1970's - Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz (1982). Their definition is both
simple and elegant:
“Intentional GROUP processes plus the softWARE needed to support them"
There are now a very wide variety of commercially available groupware products. In Holtham (1993), a
matrix was developed to classify these products (Figure 1), based on the business processes - those core
activities which cut across departments and job functions - to which groupware can be applied. The axes
relate to the level of management process, and the degree of interactivity within the group.
Levels
Executive | Shared Group
information | Insight Decision
Top Systems Suppor
saieei Status, | Conference | Montioring
ff l@ | Reports
Scheduling Copaborat sd
Meetii
Opera- Database Beeource Phone ¢ aie
tional Messaning/ Time-critical
Interactivity .
Low Medium High
©)Clive Holtham, 1992
Figure 1: TI ion by py id
management levels and interactivity
The processes typically supported by the work of systems dynamicists would either be "group decision
support” (very interactive group situation) or "shared insight" (somewhat interactive group).
Collaborators
Theré are five major industrial collaborators in this project:
* ACT Business Systems - project management and consultancy
* Bull ‘ion Systems UK - provision of h networking and systems integration
* Esmerk Ltd - provision of real-time and historic data feeds
* PCL Ltd - technical integration of groupware and information tools
* Touche Ross - process methodology and integration
City University Business School is the lead ic steering has
been created involving three other business schools - Strathclyde, Loughborough and Cranfield. There
Microworids. pave 56
1994 INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM DYNAMICS CONFERENCE
are also a number of other industrial collaborators, which comprise a “Collaborative Club." One of these
is a distributor of systems dynamics software - the Electric Brain Company.
Operation of the Simulator
The structure of the Business Flight Simulator is summarised in Figure 2.
[Business Flight Simulator - Structure
HARD SOFT
Oo Liseoor| itator sends
‘Social Forecasts =" 4 || Instructions /
Daily News receives results
Feeds
Figure 2
The central core is a local or wide area network, with immediate availability of a variety of existing
groupware packages. This network physically supports a group involved in an important piece of
collaborative work. This work typically involves access to "hard" data: forecasts, databases, news and
information feeds, and financial data. There will be "soft" data also - in informal discussions and
controversies.
Group members partly work on an individual basis, synthesising data and brainstorming, and then
actively with via and ic mail. Those working in
the same place can also use ordinary meetings as appropriate. The aim is certainly not to replace all face
to face contact by a wholly el ic support envi A can ional ideas
and challenges at any time. The group will typically need to tude by producing a policy d
or action plan.
Settings
Applications of the BFS involve at least three different settings:
I, Running the simulation on an organisation's own premises over a finite period of time e.g. 4 - 1
day. This is typically a real planning or strategy meeting.
2. Running the simulation as in |, but with some partici ically remote, i ing for the
finite period by electronic methods. In further stages of “development there are plans to
this with video links.
3. Running the simulation over an extended period of time, using databases and communications
facilities held at one or more central locations, with participants using PC’s either at home or at
their normal desktop.
Microwortds, page 57
1994 INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM DYNAMICS CONFERENCE
The initial BFS has work has been carried out using the "LAN in a Suitcase". This is a portable local
area network, using notebook computers, a server with Novell Netware and a variety of groupware
I The ks are d via parallel port ethernet adapters.
Platforms and core products
Because at the PC level Windows 3 is likely to be the dominant GUI over the period of the study, then it
was most appropriate to select tools which are available under Windows 3. But it would be ideal to use
tools that could perform across Windows 3, Apple and Unix/X-Windows.
There are several core products, which will be used i in many of the BFS a sites. One i is Loins Notes,
which provides i Mail, D an
ip and istic access for aoe users.
A second is VisionQuest. This is a real-time electronic brainstorming and voting package. The third core
package is Fujitsu Desktop Conferencing (DTC). This enables users on a local area network to share
screens, and to create shared "electronic flip charts” superimposed on those screens, which can then be
stored within Lotus Notes databases.
Architecture
As the project has developed, the i of i ing widely di: systems (all inally PC,
Novell and Windows based) has proved to require a degree of self: imposed consistency lacking i in the
practical evolution of logies for these pl:
To this end it has been necessary to develop three strands of architecture for the project, each currently
represented by collaborative working parties of C ium and Club it Process archi
Technical architecture and Information architecture. A fourth group is drawing together the human,
social and facilitation issues involved in the project.
Research
The project involves research at several levels. Firstly there is the identification and integration of
individual groupware tools or building blocks. There is a need for basic research and development of the
methodologies needed for tool integration.
Secondly there is an exercise described here as "process i ion" - linking ive pi of
groupware building blocks to the information and communications needs of specific real- life business
groups.
There is then a need to apply the tools to the business processes in actual organisations. A number of
organisations willing to act as “test sites’ have already been identified. An exercise based on use of
groupware tools, and which can in at least some respects be repeated across sites, will then be carried
out. This exercise will often involve a facilitator, as group processes in business typically are not
enhanced solely by the application of technology.
Example - Market Planning
Most business use of groupware currently relates to use of a single package, or to the separate use of at
most two or three different packages. The BFS involves the use, either in a single meeting, or over time,
of different combinations of groupware products in a structured way.
Microworlds. pace 58
1994 INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM DYNAMICS CONFERENCE
To take, as an example currently being developed, the market planning process. This may involve
several groups -the Board, the Market Planning group ( )-and the individual
department management teams. It would not be unusual for each department to be supported largely by
printouts from singl spreadsheets and, to have "
manual" meetings to finalise proposals.
The dep 1 spi f will then be d by the ing Strategy Coordi The
Market Planning Group will then have “manual” meetings supported by printouts, as will the Board.
With the BFS, previously "manual" meetings will now be electronically supported. Any group involved
could use networked notebook computers in a normal meeting room with a range of groupware
available. Spreadsheets can be examined, but opinions about them should (and recorded) with the
Desktop Ci ‘ing software. i ing would be carried out with VisionQuest, and the results
fed into a Lotus Notes database that is the available at the end of the meeting (or even during it!) for
electronic publication to a much wider group.
It can be seen in this context, that use of a Systems Dynamics package.could be an important part of the
initial problem mapping, and this could be displayed and refined by different groups as the process
unfolds.
Simulation Precedents
There are a variety of approaches which prefigured the Business Flight Simulator. A good general
discussion is contained in Lane (1993).
The International Business Negotiation Simulations (IBNS) project, developed by the University of
Maryland (Rawson, 1989), involves workshops which allow business executives acting as members of a
mock US pany, to perform a negotiation (via ing) of a business venture with
their peers from an overseas country.
IMI-Geneva has developed an extensive simul - the a Exercise. This has no
pre-digested written case study (Smiley. 1989). There is, however, a vast amount of company and
industry data in a computerised information file, This “infofile”, based on a real international company,
includes not only the “numbers”, but also narrations covering the history, background and culture of the
organisation plus descriptions of the people within it.
A simulation with similar goals. Proteus. was oped by a ium of UK universities based on a
mainframe. Using funding from the UK Department of Trade and Industry's Applied Technologies in
Learning Programme. Manchester Business School has developed this into a local area network based
simulation - "Network Proteus”
These (as well as non-computerised games and simulations) clearly provide an important opportunities
for more experiential based learnmg. But even these innovative approaches fall short of the concept of
the business flight simulator
Much closer to this concept 1s the fight simulator used to train pilots since the Second World War.
These have become increasingly expensive and working with them can, for certain purposes, be deemed
to substitute for actual flight expenence. The flight simulator is a totally artificial environment except
for the cabin unit which is a replica of the real aircraft cabin. The simulator provides external graphic
displays (the view out of the cabin) which have become increasingly lifelike. A wide variety of weather
and terrain options are available. There ts a i rding and system so that student
and tutor can replay the flight and analyse what happened.
Microworlds, page 59
1994 INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM DYNAMICS CONFERENCE
Even the most sophisti and expensive flight simul: cannot cope with every possible situation
faced, and arguably flying a plane is much more of a "programmable" exercise than running a business -
there is no business equivalent of the autopilot, for example.
At the MIT Sloan School of Management, an initial approach like this has been taken with the failed
airline People Express. The case developed is-actually called the “People Express Management Flight
Simulator". Drawing on actual company data, and a variety of planning and forecasting models
superimposed on the data, students can use the computer to re-play decision making at People Express,
to examine what altemative decisions might have saved the company. The software is systems dynamics
based, and is now available under Windows 3.
Types of Simulation
In developing the BFS project a distinction has been made between two types of simulation; firstly
"deterministic" and secondly “human interaction.”
The great majority of simulation in both a generic and an operational research sense is deterministic. It
contains some underlying, usually quantifiable model. This could perhaps slightly more accurately be
called "model-based". The aviation flight simulator is model based. Such models can involve risk and
uncertainty, but there is limited scope for exercises external to the models.
What we describe as a human interaction simulation by contrast is not model based. It depends on a
group of people exchanging ideas and beliefs in a discussion. Alternatives may be proposed, evaluated
and rejected or accepted purely through oral discussion. We have coined the phrase the "Human What-
if?” to describe this.
The starting point of the BFS is the human interaction perspective. In so far as it uses model-based
tools, these are supplementary inputs into the group interaction. It is possible to carry out BFS sessions
with minimal or zero model-based inputs.
The Learning Organisation
There are a wide variety of styles and structures of business organisation. In order to natrow the
alternative ranges of such styles and structures, a particular emphasis in the BFS is placed on the
"learning organisation" (Garrett, 1989, Senge, 1990, Lessem 1992). Pedler, Burgoyne, and Boydell
(1991) define the learning company as:
“an organization that facilitates the learning of all its members and contimously transforms itself.”
The traditional hi ial approach to is, in many ways, concerned with the management
of stability. However, as the environment of business changes increasingly rapidly, as the sources of
competition increase rather than reduce, and as the alternative ways of managing increase, then a more
flexible style of organisation needs to evolve.
The ‘learning organisation’ is an approach which supports such’flexibility, with an phasis on
feedback from experience, regular review of both bjectives and i all within a
hik with an on rich ications, both vertically and horizontally.
The majority of test sites involved in the BFS project will either have explicitly espoused the style of
the learning organisation, or will have done so implicitly. However, not all organisations to be examined
will fall into this category, as a control group is essential and also because in practice organisations
rarely exhibit styles that are of a ‘pure’ hierarchical or ‘pure’ learning orientation. So it is essential to be
able to review groups working under both styles.
Microworlds, page 60
1994 INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM DYNAMICS CONFERENCE
Impact of systems thinking
Some of the basic concepts underlying the project are derived from systems thinking in the classical
sense. One of the single most significant influences was the work of Stafford Beer (1981) in relation to
warrooms or operation rooms. Beer (see Espejo and Hamden, 1989) now prefers a less militaristic term
such as "management centre". To Beer, an organisation needed an information infrastructure and
. organisational form that were consistent with the Viable Systems Model (VSM). Data collected in sub-
systems would be filtered and re-presented at the Policy and Intelligence levels.
Physically, Beer's most famous ions room.was that d for President Allende in Chile. It
is perhaps difficult in retrospect to recall the impact in the early 1970's of hearing of this futuristic room,
using specially designed chairs with integral keypads, and innovative wall mounted displays.
The BFS is not attempting to replicate Beer's operations room per se. There is not as yet formal use of
the VSM approach in the project, for example. But the BFS does represent an effort, using
-y information to capture some of the spirit of that room.
Impact of model-based simulations; the BFS and systems dynamics
The initial design of the BFS assumed that most, if not all, of the model-based aspects of simulation
would be catered for by spreadsheets, as these are used for such a high proportion of the general
modelling carried out in business.
However, some of those involved in the project had been influenced by systems dynamics (Forrester,
1961). There was an attraction to the approach as summarised by Wolstenholme, Henderson and Gavine
(1993):
"The Systems Dynamics methodology was designed to examine the behaviour of complex systems over
time. It does so by the p structure, and i flows of systems. A
definition of the method can be stated as follows:
A rigorous method for qualitative description, ‘exploration and analysis of complex systems in terms of
their p information, organis: and ies; which facilitates quantitative
simulation modelling and analysis for the design of system structure and control.”
The major practical problem faced, in early 1993, was that the standard microcomputer package to assist
in mapping process structures (iThink (TM)) was then only available on a Macintosh platform.
The perspective changed completely with the launch in 1993 of a new systems dynamics package
PowerSim, from the Norwegian Company ModellData. Not only was this explicitly written and tailored
to the Windows 3 environment, it also had PC networking capabilities, and was being geared to the
di ive, for example with the prospect of being able to publish run-time
versions of models. Byrknes, Gonzalez & Myrtveit (1993) illustrate well the potential of PowerSim
software in a networked management simulation situation.
‘The availability in Windows of architectural features such as Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) and
Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) enable the BFS project to propose an environment where users can
move directly from, for example, a meeting agenda in Lotus Notes to a blank or partly completed
systems map. Alternatively, the reverse is also required - to move from a symbol on a systems map to,
for example, a dshi imedia object, or a di fe about the logic of that part
of the map.
Microworlds, page 61
1994 INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM DYNAMICS CONFERENCE
Senge, Peter (1990) "The Fifth Discipline” New York, Doubleday
Smiley, Tex (1989) "An Experience in Integrated Management Learning" IMD, 89/1 pp15-18
Wolstenholme, Eric F., Henderson, Simon, and Gavine, Allan (1993) "The
Evaluation of Management Information Systems" John Wiley, Chichester
