Industrial Dynamics: A Technique for Gaining Understanding of Complex Systems

Abstract

Control of a complex organisation requires that its response to decision inputs be predictable . Traditionally, this has been made possible by almost breaking down the organisation into very simply coupled subsystems. This allows decision-makers to use a relatively simple and usually informal model.

Size and environmental rate of change are now tending to make the decoupling hard to make effective. Industrial dynamics provides both a theoretical structure and a computer simulation technique designed to provide decision-makers with a richer model of the dynamic feedback processes generally involved in industrial operations. The structure defines a system in terms of a closed boundary containing feedback loops, which in turn are formed by the relation between level and rate variables . The DYNAMO compiler allows models of systems conceived on these lines to be programmed in a straightforward way so as to allow experimental investigation of the system variables. The paper discusses case studies and concludes with notes on model validity and the problem of data.