Topic > Systems Thinking Approach - 1114

The traditional approach to thinking within an organization focuses on linear thinking. This focuses on system components analyzed separately and quick fixes within the organization for most parts that are visibly broken (Alman, 2011). Systems thinking moves away from looking at the constituent parts of the organization and instead focuses on the entire system and how the parts are interrelated. Systems thinking developed from the field of system dynamics and was founded in 1956 by an MIT professor named Jay Forrester. (Aronson, 1998) Systems thinking is used to provide insight into the underlying system dynamics of an organization. It is a way of understanding the reality within an organization by emphasizing well the relationships and connections between the components of the systems rather than the components separately (Green Plus, 2013). A system is a set of elements that interact to produce behavior, and all parts of a system are interdependent. Organizations are seen as interconnected, interconnected and interdependent systems, therefore systems thinking is suitable for organizations. Systems thinking leads to a better understanding of the deeper problems within an organization and provides efficient solutions. Systems thinking focuses on the organization as a whole, on interactions between parts, therefore not on the parts themselves, on how systems influence other systems, on recurring patterns rather than individual events, on changes over time and how feedback influences parts of the system (CPS HR consultancy, 2012). Systems thinking is different from traditional forms of analysis. Systems thinking makes use of synthesis. Synthesis is a thinking tool that makes sense of component interactions… middle of the paper… and the highest in the industry (Figure 3). The design team plus representatives from each of the other redesign teams were brought together to develop a systematic analysis of the company's bigger picture. Figure 4 illustrates the systems map that revealed that the root cause of the company's high supply chain costs was the continuous effort by the sales and marketing organizations to increase the product mix to improve profitability. Increasing the product mix led to many unforeseen consequences that resulted in both increased supply chain costs and ultimately reduced revenues. From this new knowledge acquired, management has rationalized its product line and obtained both greater revenues and lower costs. (Stroth, 2012) Figure 3: Graph illustrating the trend of the different variables over time (Stroth, 2012) Figure 4: The map of the system (Stroth, 2012)