Spring ÇGIE lecture 01 IE 398 Systems Thinking De partment of Industrial Engineering METU - February 2010 a course on the methods and practice of OR/IE

Spring ÇGIE lecture 02 instructors: Çağlar Güven, Sinan Kayalıgil assistants: Büşra Atamer, Bilge Çelik textbook: Management Science Decision making through systems thinking HG Dällenbach & DC McNickle Palgrave 2005 course site lecture files, extra material etc.

Spring ÇGIE lecture 03 course objective systems thinking is what makes OR/IE different from other engineering and management disciplines success in OR/IE will not be possible without ST the aim of this course is achieving competency and understanding of systemic inquiry by studying systems thinking that complements disciplinary inquiry and quantitative analysis in order to enable effective application of IE knowledge

Mission of the METU/IE Department Spring ÇGIE lecture 14 Mission The IE Department studies organised human activity and educates engineers capable of creating value in socio-technical systems. Our work is founded on critical reason and systems thinking and on strong quantitative analysis. Our approach emphasizes identifying and structuring issues and formulating problems, as much as it seeks to develop and implement effective courses of action.

Spring ÇGIE lecture 05 justification for the course IE addresses sociotechnical issues in human organisations that involve choice and trade-offs that are difficult to resolve IE aims to bring the power of abstraction and analysis to deal with such trade-offs so that managerial action can produce improvement this aim generates dual objectives in IE education: (i) acquiring adequate command of quantitative analysis and mathematical modelling, and (ii) building systems skills needed to put this knowledge into practice

Spring ÇGIE lecture 06 systems thinking lays the groundwork for IE practice; it is a prerequisite for making sense of human activity, for structuring issues and for defining problems without a good conception of systems, the link from quantitative analysis to management practice will not be complete; designs will not work out as planned and improvements will fail to materialise. this course addresses systems thinking and systems theory in a formal and systematic treatment

Spring ÇGIE lecture 07 systems thinking has emerged as a significant mode of inquiry that contains and complements disciplinary thinking, ie. traditional scientific thinking in such areas as biology, physics, management and OR within the OR tradition it has developed its conceptions to such a degree that an adequate coverage is not possible without dedicated courses attempts to teach systems thinking by dispersing systems ideas throughout the curriculum does not work very well; it also weakens disciplinary content this course seeks to remove the deficiency in the systems foundation of the IE curriculum

Spring ÇGIE lecture 08 scope of the course the literature on ST is very extensive and scattered ST is still evolving and changing it rests on advanced concepts and constructs from philosophy and social theory most of it cannot be covered in an introductory course this course is introductory and concerned with ST in so far as it supports the practice of OR/IE it is more on methodology than on theory tools and techniques supporting applications will be emphasised

Spring ÇGIE lecture 09 conduct and evaluation lectures –the textbook to be followed as far as possible –extra material included in slides and at the website –advance preparation and attendance required evaluation –assignments term project (15%) quizzes and classwork (20%) –midterm examinations: (35%) –final examination (30%)

Spring ÇGIE lecture 010 short syllabus Introduction Problem Situation Systems Complexity System Models Hard OR Costs Soft OR Methods Soft Systems Methodology-1 Soft Systems Methodology-2 Soft System Case Studies

Spring ÇGIE lecture 011 TEXT CHAPTERS, REFERENCES, READING MATERIAL

Spring ÇGIE lecture 012 other books Pidd, M.,Tools for thinking, Wiley 2003 Pidd, M., Systems modelling, Wiley 2004 Yolles, M., Management Systems, Pitman 1999 Checkland, P. & J. Scholes, Soft Systems Methodology in Action, Wiley 1990