Patrick Godfrey

The development of a value improvement model for repetitive processes (VIM)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a value improvement model (VIM) for repetitive processes applicable to any business where people and/or plant provide a service to support the overall business objective. Arguing competitive advantage can be realised through different amalgams of productive and strategic resources, the VIM introduced focuses on aligning resource bundles and influencing factors creating efficacious, efficient and effective processes by applying Lean thinking and Six Sigma tools and techniques more holistically.Design/methodology/approach – The research methodology taken incorporated a case study approach complimented by the action research process of planning, observing and reflecting summarized as an action case study research design. The case study data examine the development of a management cycle of value improvement on an inter‐terminal shuttle transportation system within a busy international airport.Findings – The VIM has been proven as a useful model for understan...

Using systems thinking to learn to deliver sustainable built environments

Sustainability of the built environment may be seen as an emergent property of the complex systems involved. It is the interaction of the components that determines the outcome. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. Since human behaviour dominates performance, we need a wide collaboration of disciplines and research methods to address this holistically. Fortunately, systems thinking is an approach that is shared by many researchers and practitioners, across a great diversity of disciplines including biological, social and physical sciences, and engineering. This paper provides a brief introduction to systems thinking and reflects on its use as a means of integrating processes through the use of systems modelling, frameworks and measurement systems.

Design of an Integrated Assessment of Re-distributed Manufacturing for the Sustainable, Resilient City

Re-distributed manufacturing (RDM) has the potential to be beneficial to business and society through creating jobs, reducing the environmental impacts of production, and improving organizational and societal resilience to future disturbances. The potential impacts of RDM for a city-region are complex and their exploration requires the consideration of a wide range of issues—societal, technical, logistical, and environmental. This paper discusses the use of an approach called Integrated Assessment to carry out an initial scoping of the issues. A research framework for RDM, and the key themes from a workshop that explored the causal relationships between different types of resilience, sustainability, and the manufacturing sectors are presented.

Developing an asset management value improvement model (a‐VIM) approach for an airport operational engineering environment

Purpose – A previous attempt to implement the use of historical measures of asset management effectiveness – as part of a value improvement model (VIM) for repetitive processes – had not been 100 percent successful within an airport operational engineering environment. Taking into account the more holistic approach realised through applying a soft systems methodology (SSM), the purpose of this paper was to use the CATWOE (Customers, Actors, Transaction, World View, Owner and Environment) tool to gain an understanding of the root definition of the problem statement developing a conceptual model used to facilitate an improvement to the implementation process.Design/methodology/approach – The research methodology taken incorporated an action research approach combining case study research with an action research process of planning, observing and reflecting summarized as taking an action case research design.Findings – This research has developed a visual and systematic framework that enables managers to und...

The development of a lean resource mapping framework: introducing an 8th waste

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a useful framework for identifying a new lean waste classified as polarization. Complementing the extant lean conceptual framework, the authors argue there is a need to understand how resources are deployed and how these can be best aligned to maximise their value‐adding contributions. The purpose of this paper is therefore to identify a conceptual framework and a supporting practitioner approach for understanding and identifying instances of the non‐value adding polarization of resources.Design/methodology/approach – A captious and taxonomic review of the lean conceptual literature is made and the link to the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm is acknowledged. A conceptual framework is developed and adopting an action case study approach through practitioner intervention, a lean resource mapping framework is presented.Findings – A useful mechanism is developed following a sequential processing mapping framework concluding with a “current state” lean re...

A view of Systems Practice: Enabling quality in design

The purpose of the study was to gain a greater understanding of the use of Systems Practice among engineers working in the Rolls-Royce Defence Sector at its Bristol site and develop hypotheses about its use. This study is part of a larger project to investigate and improve the use and embedding of Systems Practice among engineers at the site. The current situation was studied using a combination of grounded theory and system dynamics, supported by the use of a computer-aided qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) package. The results from this work show that Systems Practice is valued as a way of enabling quality in design but engineers find it challenging to adopt because of (i) lack of stakeholder appreciation of its value, (ii) their lack of experience with Systems Engineering, and (iii) logistical issues with its application. This work will be followed by group model building sessions to further develop the findings by identifying interventions to create and assess improvement in Systems Practice, in particular finding errors earlier in the design lifecycle. ©2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng 16

Architecting Complex Systems in New Domains and Problems: Making Sense of Complexity and Managing Its Unintended Consequences

Complex problems usually span many technical domains. Formalised methods have been developed and reported to address defence, aerospace and ICT issues. Architecting approaches for other domains and problems such as for infrastructure do not yet exist. Design methods need to be developed to address these complex problems. This paper reports on an ongoing programme of teaching and Learning Together that is developing an approach for the creation of systems architectures. The paper reflects on the work of some 300 Research Engineers and students who have been engaged in designing complex sustainable systems. It characterises formative principles for architecting frameworks and indicates ways in which they can be used to deliver emergent properties and manage unintended consequences.

Systems 2030 – Emergent themes

Systems 2030 was the theme of the Felicitation Symposium for Professor David Blockley held on 7 and 8 April 2008 at the University of Bristol to mark his retirement and celebrate his career. This special issue contains eight papers arising from the symposium, including this editorial paper. The papers by David Blockley and Paul Jowitt probably form the core of this special issue and help to circumscribe the sense and context in which ‘systems thinking’was used at the symposium. Jowitt presents a historical perspective of the development of systems thinking, starting from early roots in ‘hard’ systems and operational research techniques and ending with ‘soft’ systems and reflective practice. The paper by Pidgeon is another essential historical strand, bringing out the importance of thinking in socio-technical categories through examples taken from industrial safety. Together they contribute to the current state of play and pointers to the future presented by Blockley, who argues that ‘everything is a process’ and advocates learning through feedback for tackling uncertainty. The need for a definition of what is meant by systems thinking was identified during the symposium and an INCOSE UK Z Guide1 – ‘What is systems thinking?’ – has recently been published. In it, systems thinking is defined as a way of thinking used to address complex and uncertain real-world problems. It recognises that the world is a set of highly interconnected technical and social entities which are hierarchically organised, producing emergent behaviour. The papers by Godfrey and Oxenham illustrate applications of systems thinking in two specific areas, namely sustainable construction and defence procurement, respectively. Both papers bring out the importance of the temporal dimension in systems thinking – the sustainability paper in its description of life cycle analysis and the defence paper in identifying the need to ‘future proof’our designs. The final two papers are on climate change (Hall and Pidgeon) and ethics (Blockley and Dias). These papers have been developed from the brainstorming sessions described below. They focus, interestingly, on two of the broad spheres that need to be addressed in systems thinking – the climate change one on the natural environment impinged upon by technology and the ethics one on the social environment influenced by human belief systems.

Integrating soft and hard risks

All organisations need continually to improve and make efficiency savings without introducing unacceptable risks. Savings can be made by new collaborations and sharing at the interface between processes. Processes are what people do and so we use them to deliver value. We can also think and use process differently to improve performance. To identify added value we use a process map which shows how processes relate to each other to integrate various data such as risk registers, KPIs, people and even departments. To do this we use processes as a central spine or skeletal structure to which we associate all data and attributes. This way we expect to align to purpose, unify and simplify, to reduce waste and enhance learning. The role of new process maps and the Italian flag of evidence in adding value are briefly presented.

An Exploration of the Potential for Re-distributed Manufacturing to Contribute to a Sustainable , Resilient City

Abstract Re-distributed manufacturing (RDM), broadly described as manufacturing done at a smaller-scale and locally, could be beneficial to business and urban society through creating jobs, reducing the environmental impacts of production, and improving resilience to future disturbances. Consideration of RDM within a city-region requires the consideration of a wide range of issues – societal, technical, economic and environmental. This paper presents the results of a study into the potential for RDM to contribute to a sustainable, resilient city in the face of a range of expected future disturbances on the city and on manufacturing sectors. The study took an integrated assessment approach which incorporated the development of a conceptual framework; a ‘strawman’ causal loop diagram which was reviewed by participants in a workshop; and a stock and flow system dynamics model that represents our understanding about the structure and behaviour of urban manufacturing. Several key themes emerged: similarities between RDM and traditional manufacturing, availability of physical space for RDM to be done, achieving urban resilience through RDM by enabling responsiveness to disturbances, changes in environmental impacts from production, additions or losses in jobs, the competitiveness of local manufacturing, and skills and innovation for RDM technologies. Further work is recommended.