BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

OPERATION RESEARCH 5)

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L.von BERTALANFFY gives the following definition: "Scientific control of existing systems of men, machines, materials, money, etc… " (1962, p.3).

St. BEER, in "Decision and Control" is quite cautious and recoils from any limitative definition, He prefers to describe what O.R. does: "Operation research is the attack of modern science on complex problems arising in the direction and management…- of what exactly?" His reply is "Of enterprises" but he immediately ask himself: "What is really an enterprise, as seen from the scientist's viewpoint?" (1968, p.89).

BEER's subtle view is systemic-cybernetic in the most complete sense, since O.R. must construct models and that no models of complex systems as enterprises or organizations can be constructed (and put in perspective) without the help of multiple systemic and cybernetics concepts.

O.R. uses tools such as linear programming, games and computer simulations, developed through specific theories thus enumerated by R. ACKOFF: "…allocation, queuing, sequencing, routing, replacement, competitive, and search theories" (1974 b, p.57).

R. ACKOFF describes O.R. in the following terms: "The essential characteristics of this interdisciplinary activity lie in its methodology. Out of an analysis of the desired outcomes, objectives of the organization, it develops a measure of performance (P) of the system, It then seeks to model the organization's behavior in the form of an equation in which the measure of performance is equated to some functions of those aspects of the system which are subject to management's control (Ci) and which affect the desired outcome, and to those controlled aspects of the system (Ui) which also affect the outcome.

"Thus the model takes the form:

P = f(Ci, Ui)

"From the model, values of the control variables are found which maximize (or minimize) the measure of the systems performance:

Ci = g(Ui)

"The solution, therefore consists of a set of rules, one for each control variable, which establishes the value at which that variable should be set for any possible set of values of the uncontrolled variables" (1974, p.5).

Operations research has proved quite useful in numerous cases, However it knows of severe limitations, as stated by ACKOFF, himself a recognized leader in O.R.: "It will be recognized that this procedure is one by which equipment systems should be ideally designed", Unfortunately, in many cases such a model of a desired equipment system cannot be constructed because of our ignorance". Nor is there sufficient knowledge to relate any of the less perfect available measures of performance to the large number of design variables… As a consequence, design is currently accomplished by a combination of scientific analysis, intuition and aesthetic considerations".

Even so, in his 1960 paper, ACKOFF was optimistic: "It should be recognized however, that current design procedures are only an evolutionary stage which will be replaced as rapidly as possible by effective modelling and the extraction of solutions from the resulting models" (Ibid).

ACKOFF himself later contributed with his interactive or participative planning a new approach that tries to mend some of the O.R. Problems.

However, more than 30 years later hopes for better solutions seem to have been at the same time furthered and dashed with the development of chaos theory and thermodynamics of the irreversible systems faraway from equilibrium: Complex systems' behavior can never be forecasted in a perfectly accurate way, However, the limits to predictability are now better understood.

On the other hand, one of the first O.R. enthousiasts, C.W. CHURCHMAN, recognized in 1979 (as quoted by M.C. JACKSON, 1992, p.255) "that the original intention of a holistic, interdisciplinary experimental science adressed to problems in social systems was betrayed as O.R. degenerated, in the 1960s, into little more than mathematical modeling".

Many practitioners would even be surprised to learn that it was ever intended to be more than that!

The practically insoluble difficulties encountered by FORRESTER's world dynamics were a early harbinger of this situation.

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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