Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
By Michael McCurley
The tipping point of a system commonly comes when negative feedbacks surpass
positive feedbacks. This happens when growth from positive feedback is balanced and
then changes in favor of negative feedback that will decrease growth instead of
increasing it.
What happens is easier to see than it is to explain. The growth curve will reach its
maximum, and then stabilize (reach equilibrium) or (more probably) decline. Growth,
equilibrium, and decline are the most common aspects of this process.
Why is this important? Since most companies focus exclusively on growth, they
may ignore important signals that will eventually lead to decline. When that decline is
detected, it is already too late. The system will have shifted beyond its tipping point and
the dominant effect of negative feedbacks will continue to produce an overall decline
until those effects are overcome by positive feedbacks again. Even if such a change is
possible, the behavior of the system will probably be oscillatory, instead of stable.
Keep in mind that the dominant effect is negative rather than positive until the
system can reach a new equilibrium (or tipping point). Achieving a new tipping point will
quite difficult because the inertia of the system is already moving in the opposite
direction, and must be reversed.
For many systems, including those for local economies and businesses, the
question is not if the tipping point will be reached, but rather when that tipping point will
occur. Just as growth itself is natural, the end of growth is also a natural process.
Otherwise, most biological organisms would grow endlessly, rather than cease to grow
after a certain maturation process. More effective understanding of this process can help
us understand business performance and general systems behaviors, and these will help
us to deal more effectively with this type of problem when it occurs.
To simply ignore this is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute! It’s
certainly not something you would do if you knew any better. Anyone with an awareness
of this would certainly never choose to forget what they need in case of an emergency.
IT Clients
New Clients Clients Leaving
You may work with a partner on this activity. Use Vensim PLE to make your model
STEP 1 Begin by creating the above model diagram. Open New File, then add an
Initial Time— 0 , Final Time— 12, Time Step— 0.125, Units— Month
STEP 2 Create 2 stocks for ‘IT Clients’ and ‘Clients Who Leave’. Add inflows for
‘New Clients’ and ’Clients who go’. Add another outflow for ‘Clients Leaving’. Then
add 2 auxiliaries, one for ‘additional clients who go’, one for ‘RATE OF THOSE WHO
LEAVE’. See the above diagram, then do it yourself.
STEP 3 Next, open an equation box for each parameter and add the following:
Stock ‘IT Clients’: Value— 200 Units: clients Eq. New Clients-Clients Leaving
Stock ‘Clients who go’: Value—12 Units: clients Eq. Clients who go
Inflow:‘New Clients’, Value—clients added Units: clients/Month
Inflow: ‘Clients who go’, Value—additional clients who go
Outflow: ‘Clients leaving’, Value—clients who exit Units: clients/Month
Auxiliaries
RATE OF THOSE WHO LEAVE: Value—1 Units: 1/Month
clients added: Value—2, Units: clients/Month
clients who exit: Value—Clients Who Leave*RATE OF THOSE WHO LEAVE, Units:
clients/Month
When the equation sets are complete all the parameters of your model should be clear
(not black).
STEP 4 You can check to see if your model is OK by going to ‘Model’, left click
in the upper toolbar, then left click ‘Check Model’. If your model is generally correct, it
will give you a box that says, “Model is OK”. You can check to see that your units are
consistent by going to ‘Check Units”, then left click. If the units in your equations are
correct, it will give you box that says, “Model is AOK”. If you make a mistake, you
should fix it. Note: If you check units for this model it will tell you that one parameter is
not being used. This is OK for this model. You can ignore it to keep the model simple.
STEP 5 Go to the ‘running man’, left click and run your simulation.
STEP 6 Go to equation set y=x2, left click, go to ‘IT Clients’, then go to the Graph
icon and click again. You should see a graph with your results.
IT Clients
400
325
clients
250
175
100
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Time (Month)
IT Clients : Current
Michael McCurley is head of the SysDyn Group of UMG Win Progress Ltd. in Myanmar
(formerly Burma). He is an Alumnus of MIT’s Guided Study Program in System Dynamics
and now lives in Asia.