Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
1System Dynamics in Action John D. Sterman 2001
System Dynamics in Action:Creating and Sustaining Process
ImprovementJohn D. Sterman
J. Spencer Standish Professor of ManagementDirector, MIT System Dynamics Group
Sloan School of Management, MIT30 Wadsworth Street, Cambridge, MA 02142
voice: 617/253-1952 fax: 617/[email protected]
web.mit.edu/jsterman/www
Condensed fromSterman, John (2000) Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a
Complex World. Irwin/McGraw-Hill.ISBN 0-07-238915-X.
www.mhhe.com/sterman Copyright © 2000, 2001 John Sterman
2System Dynamics in Action John D. Sterman 2001
Follow Up ResourcesSterman, J. (2000) Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World, Irwin/McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-238915-X. http://www.mhhe.com/sterman
Covers:• Systems thinking and the system dynamics worldview;• Tools for systems thinking, including methods to elicit and map the structure of complex systems and relate those structures to their dynamics;• Tools for modeling and simulation of complex systems;• Procedures for testing and improving models;• Guidelines for working with client teams and successful implementation.
Examples and applications include• Corporate growth and stagnation,• The diffusion of new technologies,• The dynamics of infectious disease such as HIV/AIDS,• Business cycles,• Speculative bubbles,• The use and reliability of forecasts,• The design of supply chains in business and other organizations,• Service quality management,• Transportation policy and traffic congestion,• Project management and product development,and many others.
Includes CD-ROM with all models and the software needed to run them; companion website includes additional material.
Follow Up ResourcesThe Summer 2001 issue of the California Management Review (Vol. 43, number 4) includes a special symposium on system dynamics modeling. The symposium includes four articles, all written with a nontechnical senior management audience in mind:
"System Dynamics Modeling: Tools for Learning in a Complex World" by John Sterman.
An introduction to system dynamics, including discussion of policy resistance, complex systems, and tools for SD modeling.
"Tradeoffs in Responses to Work Pressure in the Service Industry" by Rogelio Oliva.
Managerial discussion of the dynamics of service quality, showing how sustained quality erosion can arise from locally rational policies, with a detailed model-based case study of a large UK bank. A more technical discussion can be found in Oliva, R. and J. Sterman (2001). “Cutting Corners and Working Overtime: Quality Erosion in the Service Industry.” Management Science 47(7): 894-914.
"Past the Tipping Point: The Persistence of Firefighting in Product Development," by Nelson Repenning, Paulo Gonçalves, and Laura Black.
One of the most common syndromes in product development is firefighting, the unplanned allocation of resources to fix problems discovered later in a product's development cycle. Nelson, Paulo and Laura show how organizations can become trapped in a vicious cycle where firefighting steals resources needed to do advanced development work that might reduce the need for firefighting on the next generation product. They show how this dynamic can be self-perpetuating, and discuss policies to overcome it.
"Noboby Ever Gets Credit for Fixing Problems that Never Happened: Creating and Sustaining Process Improvement," by Nelson Repenning and John Sterman.
The number of tools and and techniques for process improvement is growing rapidly, but, despite a few dramatic successes, most firms have great difficulty implementing these tools successfully. We argue this difficulty has little to do with the specifics of the tools. Rather, the problem has its roots in the interactions of a new tools with the physical, economic, social and psychological structures in which implementation takes place. We present a feedback model to understand how implementation failure arises and illustrate strategies for overcoming them through case studies of successful improvement.
The CMR web page is http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/News/cmr/index_.html . 3
4System Dynamics in Action John D. Sterman 2001
Follow Up Resources
For information on the Manufacturing Game, see http://www.mfg-game.com .
