MYLENE L.

JOSON
PG-MBA
25 September 2019

JOURNAL PAPER REVIEW

System dynamics perspectives and modeling opportunities for
research in operations management

In the field of operations management, advances in theory and methods offer new

insights. However, the change within the world of operations continues rapidly posing a

new and tough challenge for the scholars.

It is recognized that critical feedback and interactions, which are greatly involved

in the core processes in organizations like production and supply chain management, are

known to cause significant delay, information distortion, and behavioral responses.

System Dynamics (SD) was erst known as Industrial Dynamics. It has been

renamed intrinsically within the late 1960s thanks to the breadth of the field. Forester,

who was one among the pioneers of dynamic modeling, created a general approach in a

dynamic management system with conceptual and software tools utilized in developing,

testing, and improving behavioral, changing models of human systems, and implementing

any arising recommendations.

This issue had the purpose of expanding the way people think and theorize

regarding the intersection of operations management and systems dynamics. Secondary

data were used to develop arguments and conclusions.

There were methodological elements identified: system dynamic models are

structural, behavioral representations of systems, in which the behavior of a system arises

from its structure that consists feedback loops, stocks, and flows, and nonlinearities; SD

models capture disequilibrium where modelers represent the processes the decision

makers respond to especially when the states of the system differ from their goals; SD

stresses the importance of a broad model boundary where it uses a wide range of tools

to assess uncertainty; and SD models are developed and tested through grounded

methods where modelers exert effort to capture interactions among system elements in

the real world.

The issue recognized Forester’s integrated supply chain model showing how

limited information and bounded rationality led to oscillations in real supply chains and

amplifications of disturbances up the chain, which are still happening today. Three papers

were used to expand on this experimental tradition: Sternan and Dogan’s laboratory

experiment with the beer game to explore the causes of hoarding and phantom ordering;

Weinhardt, Herdijani, Harman, Steel, and Gonzalez’ laboratory experiment to explain

people’s difficulties with the stock management problem; and Liu, Mak, and Rapoport’s

paper, which examined the evolution of coordination in a complex system of traffic

network.

These papers helped shed light on the behavioral operations literature. But, it

should be remembered that the role of system dynamics studies in supply chain are not

limited to the consideration of decision failures by planners.

It was acknowledged that despite numerous research and proliferation of its tools,

project management remains troubled and projects are routinely LEW – Late, Expensive,

and Wrong. This issue used the dispute between Ingalls shipbuilding and the US Navy

literature to review the LEW dynamics. It was seen that project dynamics are conditioned
not only by the delays in discovering rework as prototypes are built and testing carried

out and other such Physics, but, importantly, by behavioral processes such as concealing

of problems from management. Hence, SD models that capture a wide array of

behaviorally grounded feedback are applied to improve project performance.

The SD scholars used varied literature to explore service delivery and quality

dynamics, and improvement of processes wherever conditions such as stress have effect

on the motivation of workers’ productivity. It had been found that actions of various sectors

interacting with one another, and the physical operating system trap below par

performance and impede or block improvement. It had been known that the ensuing

complex modes were led to by the gap in research within the application of

methodological tools.

The findings supported the conclusion that scholars need to expand their thoughts

and theorize more on the intersection of operations management and system dynamics.

Reference:

Sterman, J., Oliva, R., Linderman, K., & Bendoly, E. (2015). System dynamics perspectives and

modeling opportunities for research in operations management. Journal of Operations

Management, (39-40), pp. 1-5.