REPLY Future Development Directions (SD6281)

[System Dynamics Mailing List]

Posted by  Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold at web.de>

Following the discussion from the beginning I would like to give my 
comments on it.

I can fully understand that everybody capable of forming models in 
SD wants to present a complete model of a model that is present in 
current business life. But as coming from the more practical side 
of life, meaning being involved in frontline processes also having 
visions of a broader picture concerning the dependencies of the 
various processes in a company I see some shortcoming of the 
discussion so far.

The people that have to be reached by SD thinkers are the top 
management (giving the direction of future steps) and middle 
management (putting the direction into real results). We have to 
solve their problems!

The question is: what is/are their problem/s?

At the current time company problems can be easily shifted elsewhere 
(shifting the burden!) in the world mostly looking on the labour 
costs. This is not equivalent with erasing the problem (such as 
making processes lean or -generally saying- better) but this just 
leads to another few years of profit until every competitor is doing 
the same thing and the processes are everywhere the same again (I am 
generalising a bit;-)) and then there is another change to an even 
cheaper country.

So I think management has to realize that problems just don't fade 
away when they move the factory to a cheaper part of the world.

Here should SD (and of course in more general terms System Thinking) 
come into action. I think it is not the perfect model that is useful 
to change minds but the general view and the various possibilities of 
steps and their impact on other processes in businesses (either 
positive or negative). As soon as the interest of the management is 
grabbed then thoughts about particular models should be discussed in 
taken to action. Presentations to top management should not exceed an 
A3 page (similar to the A3-story at Toyota), so the situation can be
 grasped and discussed right on this ONE page.

The next question is: where can I get in contact with management?

This could be either through the SDS Conference where sometimes 
practitioners step in (happened to me last year in Nijmegen when I 
joined the Business SIG by chance:-)), then there are conferences 
on other topics such as TPM Total Productive Maintenance, where SD 
thinkers could step in evaluating what the burning questions of 
business are. Of course the attendance of that kind of conference 
has at first sight a more indirect connection between SD and 
business topics. I am sure it will turn in no time that there are 
strong connections between the fields. Having a good example of 
that right at the company where I work, namely the plant manager 
himself who is lecturing about "Systemic Factory Planning" at the 
Technical University of Dresden bringing students (they are studying 
mechanical engineering) the connectiveness of processes concerning 
the broader environment of the company closer to mind. These 
students will be the managers of tomorrow understanding SD and ST;-)

> Paul Holmström suggests that the International System Dynamics Conference
> should allow sessions where we cast aside the academic rigor in order to
> showcase good presentations of real world problems.


That is a great proposal:-) Especially smaller but pressing problems 
in the business world should be addressed.

> It may be a matter of notice.  Perhaps the Conference organizers could
> develop a 'practitioner thread' that highlights the Business Roundtable and

This kind of presentation would be perfectly suitable for the Business SIG 
of the SDS, that also has a Yahoo discussion group 
(http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/sdsbizsig/) right on this field. 
Till now the number of people discussing the topic there are not yet above 
the "critical mass" and some people, such as myself, are relatively new to 
the field unfamilar with modelling.

So I am looking forward to further fruitful discussion on the above topic.

So long

Ralf

PS.: Of course the busines view is just a glimpse of the complete SD view 
that is much wider;-)
Posted by  Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold at web.de>
posting date  Sun, 18 Feb 2007 17:47:25 +0100