System Concepts Notes

A system is a group of elements working together to achieve an objective.
Organizations like firms, institutions, or departments exemplify systems.
These organizations consist of elements such as humans, hardware, and software that collaborate to meet organizational goals.
A system is a set of interrelated components working together for a common purpose.
It maintains its existence through the mutual interaction of its parts.
A system is an interconnected set of elements organized to achieve a function or purpose.
Systems can exist within systems.
Maintaining harmony between sub-purposes and overall system purposes is crucial for successful systems.

Every system has a unique combination of elements.
Common elements include objectives, control mechanisms, input, transformation, and output.
Input resources are transformed into output resources.
The control mechanism monitors the transformation process to ensure objectives are met.
Example: The human body's respiratory system causes sweating in hot weather to cool the skin and raises hair to trap heat in cold weather.
Food poisoning triggers the digestive system to flush out toxins through frequent toilet visits or vomiting.
In automobile manufacturing, a car inventory deficiency prompts management to inform the input system for corrective action.
The control mechanism is connected by a feedback loop; it monitors performance by comparing the feedback signal with the system’s objective.
If the system output meets the objective, the system is stable.
If the system output does not meet the system’s objective, a signal is sent to the system input to change operations.

A system comprises many stages.
The human body contains systems like the respiratory and digestive systems, with subsystems that can be divided to a single cell.
A clinic system includes registration, appointment, and medical treatment subsystems.

A super system is a larger system consisting of many subsystems.
A department subsystem is part of the university’s super system.
A faculty system is also part of the university super system.
Subsystem contains a part of the System, while Supersystem contains the System (as one of its parts).
Example: If a tree is the System, then leaves, trunk, and roots belong to the Subsystem, while the forest is the Supersystem.
Projects are the System, tasks are the Subsystem, and the goal is the Supersystem.

System components have subsystems and supersystems.
Example: A hotel's Food & Beverage Department (supersystem) conceptualizes ideas to increase sales.
The Marketing and Research & Development Departments (systems) operate under it.
The Marketing Department designs promotional materials.
The Research & Development Department creates food lineups and ingredient lists.
Room Sales and Banquet Sales (subsystems of Marketing) and the Kitchen Department (subsystem of Research & Development) operate under these systems.

Physical system: Originates from tangible physical elements.
Example: A business firm including humans, buildings, hardware, and office equipment.
Conceptual system: Uses conceptual resources that cannot be seen physically to represent the physical system.
Conceptual resources are data and information.
The conceptual system exists as an idea in the manager’s mind, graphs, papers, or data statements captured on the screen.
Manufacturing (physical system) consists of humans, raw materials, and machines creating a product.
Data and information stored in the system are the conceptual system, reflecting the physical system.
The manufacturing conceptual system allows managers to identify the quantity of raw materials used, transformation process sequences, workers involved, and quantity/destination of finished products on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

System view: How an issue, problem, or event is perceived in the context of a system.
It views business operations as a system within a larger environment.
System view benefits managers by:
- Elaborating on the structural and functional complexity of organizations with the super system and subsystem concept.
- Identifying the objectives and directions of the organization.
- Determining how system components should collaborate to achieve organizational objectives.
- Identifying the relationship between the organization and its environment.
- Prioritizing the value of feedback information achievable from the closed-loop system.

Open-loop systems lack a control mechanism.
Example: An information system that generates reports regularly without monitoring input, performance, or activities.
Closed-loop systems have three control components:
- Control mechanism
- Feedback loop (input, transformation, and output)
- Objective
Example: A budgetary control system in an organization where issues are communicated through feedback, and expenditures are compared with objectives.

An open system is connected to its environment through the flow of resources.
Most existing systems are open systems.
Example: An election voting system that counts voting input from voters and declares results.
A closed system is not connected to its environment.
It is conducted separately to produce controlled results.
Example: A laboratory science experiment.

Organizations consist of:
- Structure
- People
- Business Processes
- Information Technology
Based on the Leavit diamond diagram, an organization has four fundamental components that must work together for the organization to be effective.
Organizations and their members are designed to accomplish predetermined goals through people and resources.
Organizations consist of smaller, interrelated systems serving specialized functions.
A change in IT affects the other three components:
- People need retraining.
- Business processes need redesigning.
- Organizational structure and reporting relationships need modification.