Designing and simulating sociotechnical systems: Concepts and strategies

✍ Scribed by Dietrich Brandt; Ernst Hartmann; Christine Sander; Guiseppe Strina

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 174 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1090-8471
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1520-6564(199922)9:3<245::aid-hfm2>3.0.co;2-x

✦ Synopsis

Today, technology design, technology use, and organizational structures in enterprises can no longer be regarded as isolated from each other because they are highly correlated in networks, which become increasingly complex and dynamic. Enterprises must be understood as sociotechnical systems that consist of human and technical subsystems and their relations with each other. They can be analyzed by referring to the concept of self-similarity (or fractals). In (re)designing such systems, modeling and simulation methods are needed. This report describes a method that combines two different simulation methods. They can be integrated to model and simulate complex sociotechnical systems as a whole. The method has been developed by modeling and simulating computersupported cooperation and communication along the logistic chain in intermodal traffic (traintruck freight transportation).