Managerial problems and needs in system perspective

Today, all kinds of organization are constantly exposed to changes in a dynamic and moving environment. In order to survive they have to predict these changes and be prepared to respond quickly and adequately. When it comes to commercial enterprises, the following major driving forces seem to be the most influential today: Development of

Four generations of computer support in system perspective

During the 1960s, when the first generation of useful all-purpose computers reached the market, a kind of decision support called electronic data processing, EDP, became available. It was designed to do the task of implementing decisions which had already been made. Very large quantities of data were processed, each in accordance with a well-defined

C3I systems

This heading is an acronym for Command, Control, Communication and Intelligence, mainly used as a general concept for a military command structure. The acronym has its origin in the notion of command & control (C2) which has been defined as: ‘In general terms, C2 is everything an executive uses in making decisions and seeing

Some psychological aspects of decision-making in system perspective

In the preceding pages some structural and technical points of decision- making have been discussed. The importance of the psychological factors involved cannot, however, be neglected. One of these is the creative element which more or less influences all steps of the process. Regarding creativity per se, a wise man knows that pessimists underestimate

The future of managerial decision support in system perspective

It is very difficult to provide relevant predictions in such a dynamic field of computer technology as decision support systems. The small examination of the past made here may, however, give some reasonable conclusions for the future. The users of today’s systems differ substantially from the past and are no longer the hard-core computer

Informatics in system perspective

Since the late 1960s, computer science has been an important topic of study in all major universities around the world. This subject has its origin in the pure technological areas of computer engineering (‘computer science’), computer mathematics (‘computing science’) and numerical analysis, etc. Informatics, with its roots in computer science is a concatenation of

Electronic networks

The modern world of today consists, to a great extent, of an artificial milieu created by human beings and structured into large technological systems. The global telecommunications network belongs to one of the most complex of these systems, even if one only considers the physical network with its telephones, exchanges, optical fibre cables, satellites,

Fibre optics, communication and navigation satellites, cellular radio

Modern networks are composed of different channels, of which the three mentioned in the above heading seem to have the greatest potential. Being the least ‘glamorous’, fibre optics have already brought about a silent revolutionary change in the global communication system. The invention of fibre optics in fact neutralized the emerging ‘copper crisis’ during

Internet

When examining electronic networks, the Internet is a good example as it is one of the biggest and most spectacular. It is possible to compare the development of the Internet with earlier, radical infrastructural changes caused for example by the arrival of the railway or the motor car. Viewed in this way, the Internet

Virtual reality

In the same way that a telephone is a tool to facilitate conversation over long distances, the technology of virtual reality, or VR, is primarily a facilitator of a total remote communication experience. A higher, more effective level of communication is now possible by the amalgamation of imaging and computing power. This is something

Cyberspace and cyberpunk

In 1984, a novel was published by the American author William Gibson. Its title was Neuromancer and Gibson was soon considered a promising representative of ‘New Journalism’. This trend was a carefree, conscious mixture of facts from the latest technological and biological achievements and dystrophic prophesies regarding social development. Here the world was recognized

Some of the Systems Methodologies

Systems science has assumed as its primary responsibility the task of handling real world, large-scale, intertwined problems of complex systems. It is applied with the assumption that these problems are of a certain similarity, regardless of the system they have originated from. The systemic view therefore includes a special attention to the threat of

Large-scale, soft and intertwined problems in Systems Methodologies

Planners and problem solvers dealing with large-scale societal problems have long been aware that their situations are quite different from those of ordinary scientists and engineers. Classical methods of science and engineering have little if any relevance in their work. They are no longer surprised to find that their solutions often induce problems of

Systems design

One of the best existing reports on systems design is made by J.P. van Gigch (1978). He defines the method as a series of ongoing, cybernetic and fluid design functions. It begins with a question regarding the purpose for the existence of the system and emphasizes the problems in relation to superordinate systems. The

Breakthrough thinking in Systems Methodologies

A new variation of soft systems methodology has been developed by Gerald Nadler and Shozo Hibino. It was introduced in their book Breakthrough Thinking (1990) and is a total, holistic approach to problem solving. The authors state that it combines the best of the visionary and the pragmatic approaches to problem solving and problem

Systems analysis

The main ideas of systems analysis were originally developed by the RAND Corporation of America. It was created for the study of interaction between science, technology, and society. Several variations have been introduced. The one presented here is distinctive for the basic concept and has been adopted from R. Flood and E. Carson (1988).

Systems engineering

Systems engineering as a ‘hard’ methodology has its roots in NASA and the early space projects of the 1960s. One of its more generally applicable variations is again presented by Flood and Carson (1988). It has four main phases: systems analysis, systems design, implementation and operation. The phase of systems design in this case

GLS simulation as Systems Methodology

Finally, a hard systems methodology developed by the author will be presented (Skyttner 1988). It has two explicit starting points, one in GLS theory and one in DYNAMO, a computer language developed by Jay Forrester (see p. 43). The idea is that problems can always be related to one or more of the main

Method versus problem in Systems Methodologies

In this chapter, only the main steps of the methodologies were dealt with. This is because the appropriate substeps often include the use of sophisticated statistical, mathematical and economic tools and models, discussion of which is outside the scope of this book. Of the many systems methodologies available, some clearly work well in certain

The Future of Systems Theory

In the foregoing chapters, an attempt has been made to present the current state of systems theory and some of its applications. To predict the future of an area which still has not celebrated its fiftieth anniversary as an unified area of knowledge, is of course extremely difficult. Any effort to predict the coming