Systems Analysis Portfolio - Assignment Example

David M. Savo SYSTEM ANALYSIS PORTFOLIO Dr. William Schulz Improving Business Performance SYSTEMS ANALYSIS PORTFOLIO Over the past weeks, the various approaches to analyzing problems and finding solutions to them within the workplace by the use of system analysis diagrams have been emphasized. The first attempt made focused on the creation of systems diagram, where it was noted that to effectively identify and solve problems that exist within an organization, the manager in-charge and creating the systems diagrams must emphasize on three major areas of the system diagram, which are review system, requirement development, and comparison of system with existing models.

A typical example of this has been given below.Creating Systems DiagramsThe essence of this system analysis will be to identify the gap that exists between OCI’s current achievement and its industry benchmark. This will be done by the use of a system diagram, which will indicate a hypothetical industry position as against the perceived position that the company wants to reach. After this, the existing gap will be clearly identified from the diagram just as it has been indicated below. Review system From the work of the turnaround team, the current weaknesses of the OCI system are clearly exposed.

The first of this is the slow nature of the system currently being operated at the workplace. Meanwhile, where there is a slow system, the entire organizational process tends to be affected negatively. This is because of the relationship between speed and continuous process improvement (CPI). Where there is a system that can be run on a proactively fast pace, efficiency can be sure to be guaranteed (Shook, 2009). The system has also been described as being in a state of subtle cycle of decay.

This means that the system has virtually lost its relevance for the current market competition. In such a situation, the resulting consequence is the ineffectiveness of the system, as the system fails to serve the purpose for which it has been implemented.Requirement developmentThe analysis diagram above gives four major areas of requirement for development. The first of this is client acquisition and project selection. Over here, the issue of proper advertisement for vacancies ought to be emphasized.

There is also the requirement for member recruitment, which is currently in a huge gap from industry benchmark. It is important to standardize the recruitment process to always get the best and right materials for the company. This is because the recruitment process is required to be the first step in getting the right client base for the organization. Team dynamics is another requirement for development. Dynamism refers to a situation where members on the team can each and individually produce a different form of contribution to the project (Shook, 2009).

Lastly, there is the important requirement for project staffing, where the rightly skilled personnel must be assigned to various positions.ComparisonComparatively, the gap analysis produces a significant difference between where OCI wants to reach and its current position provided it does nothing different from what it is doing now. The comparative variable however has to do with OCI not doing anything to respond to its current state. Once the organization is ready to change its focus and emphasis and take up some detailed level of new systemic improvement, it is likely that the existing gap will not be a situation that the organization cannot deal with.

Based on the implications and recommendations given below, the organization can close the gap and ensure that it becomes a viable industry or market competitor whose output of work can match up with generalized expectations.How feedback loops can be used to fix sales problems were also emphasized in the course of the course. Here, three major types of diagrams were reviewed as relevant in finding problems within an organization and knowing the effects that the problems bring. The types of feedback loops are single loop, double loop and multiple feedback loop.

An example of how these are used has been depicted below.Fixing The Sales ProcessSingle feedback loopThe single feedback loop diagram above identifies four major factors that are possible causes to the challenges currently being faced at Baria Planning Solutions Inc. These factors are customer demand, service standard, service quality, and service reputation. Very significantly, the company is currently scoring very low and negative in terms of service standard and service quality. Meanwhile, these two factors namely service standard and service quality are highly, together with service reputation constitute dependent factors that determines how customer demand turns out to be.

It is not surprising therefore that due to the negative turnout in service quality and service standard, customer demand has also been declining significantly. There is however a positive score with service reputation, which could be a single consequential reason that the customer demand has not totally fallen out of hand below the current 84% mark. In system thinking, companies are required to put together all their organizational potentials in order to be able to attain a collective positive outcome of success (Meadows, 2008).

From the single feedback loop therefore, Baria Planning Solutions will be required to turn one of service standard and service quality into a positive mark to attain a positive customer demand to increase sales.Double feedback loopThe double feedback loop showed above gives a new twist and dimension to the current situation at Baria Planning Solutions Inc. The new twist is that there is an indication of direct exchange of dependence between customer demand and service reputation. What this implies is that customer demand, which often leads to increases in sales, is directly and proportionally interrelated to service reputation.

In the principles of learning organizations, this could be both a positive development and negative development for the company, depending on how the company approaches the situation (Senge, 2006). Currently, service reputation is a scored positive, which means that it can be given further attention by the company with the hope of turning customer demand into positive. Because service reputation is linked with service quality and service standard however, the company cannot rely on service reputation alone.

In effect, the cause of the current situation could be blamed on overreliance on the need to give reputable outlook of the company without really making time to concentrate of quality and standard.Multiple feedback loopThe multiple feedback loop presented above gives two distinct sales growth variables. These variables are external variables and internal variables. The internal variables comprise such factors as income opportunities that the company has, employee involvement at the company, and motivation given to employees.

Depending on how the company is able to manipulate and regulate these factors, sales will be positive. The external variables are largely determined by market factors including the size of market niche and saturation of market niche. So far, the cause of the company’s sales decline can be determined from the multiple feedback loop diagram as being the result of poor internal variable management. This is because motivation and employee involvement have all been scored negative. Consequently, it has not been possible for the company to take advantage of its income opportunities.

The external variables are also positive but due to negative internal variables, not much opportunity has been taken from the external market.Last but not least, the use of system diagrams to analyze stall points was focused. Under this unit, it was noted that system diagrams are in place to help with identifying causes of problems so that based on the causes, the organizations can effectively align problems to causers and find the best fitting solutions to them. Example of this has been exemplified below.

Analyzing Stall PointsSystem DiagramLimits to Growth Archetype Analysis Diagram There are two major diagrams that are presented above. Even though these may be different, they are all telling the same story and are all focused towards the same goal. Generally, the diagrams are giving a cause analysis of Bayonne’s declining performance for the reason of finding lasting solutions to them. As envisioned by Olson, van Bever & Verry (2008), the growth of companies and the need to change current situations is directly focused on attempts and efforts being made to identify what the core problems and challenges are so that the best fitting solutions can be found.

From the system diagram, a very simple same way relationship between two factors is given. As the name implies, same way relationship system diagrams are used to explain the connection existing between two factors or variables, where by one of them moves in the direction of the other (Wolstenholme, 2003). At the same time, one of the factors or variables has positional direction influenced by the other. By implication, any two factors that are analyzed with the use of the same way relationship diagram will all move to a positive direction if the first factor, which is the driving factor, is positive.

By implication, Bayonne is faced with such a situation where customer satisfaction is identified to be directly proportional and dependent on quality. Indeed, for customers to be satisfied, they have to have the assurance that the outcome of the products they order for can be within the scope and limit of standard they expect. Once expectations of customers in terms of quality are not met, customer satisfaction will be low.In the second diagram, which seeks to find the stall point in Bayonne’s declining performance, the impact of the first diagram is explained further.

This is because the company is currently not producing to the expected quality of customers and this has been exposed by the company’s quality control department and as stated in the words of Schuler. The second diagram shows that the slowing action in the company’s production is product quality. This slowing action has a limiting condition of on-time delivery, which has also been noted in the words of Wascov. Consequently, the result that the company is getting is stall growth, which has actually affected the sales of the company.

By the principle of system thinking, the effect of one factor is commonly professed through a tangle and measurable outcome such as sales (Meadows, 2008). This is because most output variables such as customer satisfaction are always qualitative and thus hard to measure. But where the outcome is seen in such a variable as sales, it is easier for the company to know that there are things that are not going on well with the organizational processes. The positive development with Bayonne is that there is an action being taken, which can be considered as a positive one.

This action is a system analysis, which is being championed by Milliken. This is because by touring the whole facility, Milliken is familiarizing himself with the situation on the ground, which is a very important step in fixing organizational challenges through the principle of system thinking (Meadows, 2008).In conclusion, it can be stated that the solution to problems within organization is in finding the most pressing causes to the problem so that whiles these causes are found their possible effects can be linked to them.

Refusing to do this in an effective way will mean that the solutions that will come up will be looking at something different from the causes and so the problems will continue to exist. ReferencesBen-Menachem, M., & Gavious, I. (2008). Economic desirability and traceability of complex products. Electronic Journal of Information Systems Evaluation, 11(3), 155–166.Meadows, D. H. (2008). Thinking in systems: A primer. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green.Olson, M. S., van Bever, D., & Verry, S. (2008). When growth stalls.

Harvard Business Review, 86(3), 50–61.Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art & practice of the learning organization. New York, NY: Doubleday.Shook, J. (2009). Toyota’s secret: The A3 report. MIT Sloan Management Review, 50(4), 30–33.Werhane, P. H. (2008). Mental models, moral imagination and system thinking in the age of globalization. Journal of Business Ethics, 78(3), 463–474.Wheatley, M. J. (2008). Self-organized networks: What are the leadership lessons? Leadership Excellence, 25(2), 7–8.

Wolstenholme, E. F. (2003). Towards the definition and use of a core set of archetypal structures in system dynamics. System Dynamics Review, 19(1), 7–26.