Systems Modeling (3)

Ronald Sukwadi, Ph.D.

Industrial Engineering Department
UNIKA ATMA JAYA JAKARTA
OUTLINE
 A Situation Summary :Rich Picture
 Approaches for Describing A Relevant
System
 System Models
 Influence Diagrams

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Systems Modeling
 We will apply the systems concepts and thinking
discussed before to a real-life problematic
situation
 Define a relevant system for it.
 Several cases –problematic situations discussed
 System modeling: The process of conceptualizing
a system of interest.
 This involves two steps: Describing a problem
situation and a relevant system

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A Situation Summary
 The first step when approaching a
problem situation is to familiarize
yourself with:
 the situation
 Its processes and structures
 The people involved
 Their aims and desires
 Relationship between them
 The hierarchy or power structure
 The resources available
 The data sources and information
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A Problem Situation
 To get a “ feel” for anything you
discovered and seems relevant for
describing the problem situation.
 Rich Picture Diagram is a useful tool for
describing a problem situation

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Rich Picture Diagram
 A cartoon-like summary of everything the
observer knows about the situation
studied
 Diagram or concept -is not- a system
description
 Only one approach of making a situation
summary

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Rich Picture
Problematic Situation
 The person looking at the situation
 The structural elements
 The process elements
 The relationships between structure and
process

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Rich Picture Diagram
Guidelines:
 Elements of structure (All components of the
situation are relatively stable -e.g., all physical
aspects)
 Elements of process (All aspects that undergo
change -e.g., activities, flow and processing of
materials)
 Relationship between structure and process and
between process (how does the structure affect
condition of process; one process affects other
processes)
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Rich Picture Diagram
 For human activity systems:
A rich picture should be included hard facts and
soft facts.
 The rich picture is never finished
 Common mistake:
Each item pictured needs to be connected one or
more other items (Note that rich picture is not a
system description)
 The uses of rich picture:
An ideal vehicle for communicating with other
people about complex and problematic situation
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Approaches for Describing
a Relevant System
 A system description consists in specifying:
 the transformation process(es) of the system
 the boundary of the system
 the components and subsystems and the structure
 the inputs and the outputs (desired & undesired
outputs)
 Two Approaches for describing a relevant system:
 Structural Approach
 Process Approach

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Structural Approach
 A typical structure usually found for
situation considered, e.g., a waiting line
structure.
 The situation is well understood
 Using a known basic structure allows fast
progress toward a complete system
description

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Process Approach
 No assumption about the possible system
structure
 The observed processes and relationships are
used to discover a good structure
 A good starting point is to determine from whose
standpoint to view the system and then define
the prime transformation process.
 Rules help in identifying the components, inputs
and outputs of the system.

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Rules
 Any aspect that affects the systems, but in
turn is not significantly affected by it, is an
input from the environment system. This
covers all external controls.
 Any aspect that is directly or indirectly
affected or controlled by the system, but
turn does not affected any other aspect of
the system, is a system output.

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 Any entity that is either part of the system’s
structure or its transformation process(es) is a
component of the system, unless it is an output
of the system. Similarly, if the system or any of
its components affects an entity or exercises
control over it, then that entity is a component,
unless it is a system output.
 Any aspect that does not affect the system, or is
not affected by it, or not part of its structure or
transformation process is irrelevant, and can be
ignored

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System Models
 The activity of building a model is referred
to as systems modeling.
 A model may be iconic, symbolic, or
analogous
 Symbolic Models:
 Representation of the relationships between
various entities or concept by means of
symbols.

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Mathematical Models
 Relationships between various entities are
expressed in the form of mathematical
expressions:
 Function,
 Equation, and
 Inequalities

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Case 1: The Ozone Hole
A system for how the ozone layer in the
stratosphere is gradually destroyed
through the continued release of CFSs into
the atmosphere, allowing a greater
fraction of the sun’s uv-rays to reach the
earth’s surface.
 Input:….
 Process:….
 Component:….
 Structure:….
 Output:….
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Case 2: Lubricating Oil Division
(LOD)
 A situation summary
 Identifying the problem
 A system relevant
 Influence diagram

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The Narrow System:[LOD]
 A system for the replenishment and stock
control of packaged finished goods which
keeps the total operating costs for the
LOD as low as possible while maintaining
the current level of customer service

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Relevant System:[LOD]
 To use the typical inventory/production
control structure for defining the system
 But the problem situation includes aspects
not normally found in such a structure –
e.g. rules to meet big and small customer
orders
 Use the Process Approach

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Relevant System:[LOD]
 Big customer order is met by scheduling a
special production run (is it outside the
narrow system ?)
 This aspect affects the
inventory/production control system of
LOD
 Cutoff point is considered as one of the
two decision variables.
 What type of control –open loop control
(the customer order classification –input to
the system)
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Identifying the system aspects
 See Table 5-1.
 The easiest way is to start out by listing
 The control inputs
 The performance outputs
 Any other system outputs,
 Then followed by structure, process, component of the
system
 Two potential inputs –breakdown in the operation
of the refinery and production capacities, are
ignored (why?)

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Influence Diagrams (ID)
 Insightful for bringing out the transformation
process of the system
 in term of the structural and causal relationships
between systems components.
 Depicts the influence relationship
 Between the inputs into a system and its component
(the system variables)
 Between the component of the system, and
 Between the component and the outputs of the
system, including performance measures
(these influence relationship can usually be measured
in quantitative terms)
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Approach To Draw An ID
 Control and other inputs  State variables
 System outputs (in a logical sequence)
 For example, the customer order pattern
(an input) & cutoff point (a decision)
determine order patterns (met from stock
or special production run)
 Each customer order pattern determines
the annual volume by spec-prod-run
(AVPR) or annual volume met from stock
(AVS).
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Approach To Draw An ID
 AVPR the annual number of setups
 Together with the cost of production setup
the annual setup cost for special
production run, and so forth.

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