A Journal Article Review: System Dynamics Perspectives and Modeling

Opportunities for Research in Operations Management

Leizza M. Niguidula
Student

February 7, 2018

A Requirement in the Subject MBA 105 Production and Operations Management, AMA Online
Education
 The article entitled “System Dynamics Perspectives and Modeling Opportunities
for Research in Operations Management” was published in 29 July 2015 by Sterman, J. et.
al.. The article consists of five parts; (1) Introduction; (2) Supply Chain Management; (3)
Project Management; and (4) Human resources, process management and the dynamics
of improvement. In the introductory part of the article, the authors have taken into
account the tradition of dynamic modeling in operations management from the
pioneering works of Forrester, J. W. in the late 1950’s and soon after, to the publication of
industrial dynamics. And by the late 1960’s, the term industrial dynamics have changed to
what is now the system dynamics. In addition, the authors enumerated and discussed the
four (4) methodological elements of System Dynamics that are most distinctive and
relevant to the operations management community.

According to the authors of the article, the world of operations continues to

change on a rapid pace, thus creating challenge for the OM research community.
Consequently, the purpose of their study was to discuss the challenge for the OM
community. Accordingly, the challenge has been to develop, articulate and test
parsimonious theories to explain the behavior of complex systems, to test policies for
improvement, to implement these in real organizations and to assess their impact over
time.

In their discussion, the authors referred to the previous and current works of some
scholars in operations management to develop their arguments and conclusions. It
includes citations for procedures that have been described previously. The data collection
method used by the authors in this article is the secondary data collection method,
wherein, they selected secondary data to for their study. The use of secondary data
played an important role in terms of increasing the levels of research validity and
reliability for the research. It considered the reliability of the source, quality of
discussions, depth of analyses, and the extent of contribution of the text to the
development of the research area. The research design for this study was exploratory
rather than conclusive. As asserted in its concluding part, the special issue or article, the
authors were in hope of motivating additional collaboration between scholars and
practitioners in operations management and system dynamics. The study does not aim to
provide the final and conclusive answers to the research questions, but merely explores
the research topic with varying levels of depth.

As mentioned earlier in this review, there were four (4) methodological element of
system dynamics discussed and evaluated by the authors in the article: first, system
dynamics models were structural, behavioral representations of system. The behavior of a
system arose from its structure. The SD models therefore have much in common with
models in the behavioral operations tradition (Bendoly, et al. 2010); second, SD models
captured disequilibrium. Since different decision processes govern the inflows and outflows
to the stocks that characterize the state of the system, disequilibrium was the rule rather
than the exception (Sterman 2000); third, SD stressed the importance of a broad model
boundary. Research showed decisively people’s mental models have narrow boundaries,

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omitting most of the feedbacks and interactions that generate system behavior, SD
modelers therefore also trained to challenge the boundary of models (Sterman 2000), ; and
fourth, SD models were developed and tested through grounded methods. Grounded
methods, as explained by the researchers, referred to empirical methods.

The researchers argued that the application of these methodological principles

often results in complex models, (a better theory of structure of the system and a formal
model) that cannot be solved in closed form so they must be simulated for rigorous testing
to better explain the problematic phenomenon.

In their discussion of supply chain management, three papers were analyzed and
evaluated. The paper by Sterman and Dogan uses lab experiment to explore the causes of
hoarding and phantom ordering; the paper of Weinhardt et. al. also used a lab experiment
to explain people’s difficulties with stock management problem; and the paper of Liu, Mak
and Rapoport examined the evolution of coordination in a complex system. The authors
argued that while these studies help illuminate the behavioral operations literature, it
should be noted that the role of system dynamics studies in supply chain are not limited to
the consideration of decision failures by planners.

The authors have also discussed project management. They argued that despite
decades of research and the proliferation of widely-used tools and approaches to project
management, projects were routinely LEW-Late, Expensive and Wrong. The work of Parvan,
Rahmandad and Haghani, however, had expanded the authors understanding of project
dynamics by empirically estimating the strength of critical feedback processes conditioning
project outcomes using a sample design and construction projects.

Lastly, on human resources, process management and the dynamics of

improvement, the authors studied the previous works of scholars. According to them, the
system dynamics scholars have explored the dynamics of service delivery and quality and
process improvement in settings where stress, interruptions and other conditions affect the
motivation of front-line workers and the productivity and quality of their work.

As a result of the authors’ study, they concluded that there was much to gain for
members in the fields of operations management and system dynamics in additional work
to explore the complementarities and synergies illustrated by the papers evaluated and
analyzed. They realized that their study has a broader and possibly even more important
objective: to expand the way they think and theorize about operations management.