System dynamics and process improvement : can the U.S. Navy acquisition community learn from industry behavior?

System dynamics is a powerful management planning tool for process improvement programs. Industry experience has contributed to a model that allows decision makers to simulate their actions and the resulting system response before committing to the actual policies. The resulting understanding of fundamental system behavior and interactions allows more productive and effective decision making and process improvement. Application of such a tool for U.S. Navy major acquisition programs (e.g., ships and submarines) would be invaluable in terms of cost savings, cost avoidance, schedule reductions and overall efficiency improvement. This effort conducts a review of the Science and Technology (S&T) portion of current Navy acquisition policies as a case study. The feasibility of applying the Navy system behavior to the existing MIT System Dynamics Group Simulation for Continuous Improvement Programs (SCIP) "management flight simulator" and model will be presented. This work will contribute to the ongoing efforts of MIT system dynamics research as well as the Navy acquisition reform initiatives.

Department dc:contributor.department

Sloan School of Management

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1999

Author dc:creator

• Brougham, William J. (William John), 1965-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• John D. Sterman.

• Sloan School of Management

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33544

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33544