Info310

Systems

7 April 2005

Systems

What was Churchman’s point about systems?

  • Systems are very complex
  • They must be broken down if they are to be understood
  • Understanding comes from the bottom up- once the components are understood, they must be reevaluated in the context of the whole.

Why is the system approach important?

It’s referred to as a classic. Why?

  • > Innovative for the time.
  • > Most importantly, everyone has read it. $this one is key$
  • > Changes the way we think about the subject $this one too$
  • > We tend to interact with people from industry, they use this way of thinking

System properties

Objectives

  • purpose or goals of the system
  • real vs. stated - the stated goals, esp. re. corporations are not true/hot air
  • > real == bullshit, often times.
  • the whole vs. the parts
  • Performance Measurements
    • how to quantify fulfillment of objectives

Resources

  • Means by which objectives are achieved
    • Personnel
    • Raw materials
    • Capital (money, tech)
    • Knowledge
    • >evaluate how resources available can be utilized re. objectives?

Environment

  • What lies outside the control of the system but still affects the system
    • >taxes: pharmaceutical company example
  • Boundaries: define what’s in and what’s out
    • >have changed a lot since churchman wrote

Components [activities, goals, measures]

  • Subdivisions of the system creadted to facilitate goal fulfillment.
  • University Example (personal, perhaps? no…..)
    • if university uses research as performance measure, teaching is ignored.
  • Seems that components, if viewed separately, can become stumbling blocks

Management

  • planning
  • organizing
  • coordinating
  • staffing
  • control/evaluation

Users

  • Where does the user fit into the system? Important to consider the place in the system.

Information Systems

  • Something that gathers, processes, stores, uses or disseminates information.
  • Types
Access System
Storage/Retrieval (Library systems)
Analysis System
Decision making support (Bayesian networks, etc)
Action
Takes action based upon access/analysis paths with little/no support. Full automation.

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