Systems Oriented Approach to Production Support - A Viable Framework

Production support environment gives the impression as if it is all about managing discrete events. A deeper inquiry reveals production support must be modeled as a closed loop feedback monitoring and control system rather than an open loop system, which cannot handle exceptions nor can it learn from experience. This paper adapts production support to Viable System Model framework. It identifies and develops the five subsystems of Viable System Model in the production management environment. The paper identifies how complexity can be unfolded and how variety attenuation and amplification can be implemented in production support environment to handle the complexity. The paper integrates System Dynamics approach with Viable System Model to implement three levels of adaptations- homeostatic, anticipatory and structural for production support.