It¡¦s everyone¡¦s dream to have their own career in their life, such as running a restaurant or a store. Although the economy has been depressed for a long time, there are more and more restaurants in Taiwan. Running a lunch-box store is one of the options when people want to have their own stores. Some people successed and had the chain lunch-box stores, even planned to enter China market. Some failed in running their stores and left the market. This research would focus on the operation of the lunch-box store to find what to do to make the store better operated.

The fast rise of Internet broadens students¡¦ ways of learning and their views; however, there is possibility that improper Internet use will result in problems of Internet addiction. Reviewing the literature about Internet addiction, we can find that many studies were carried quantitatively by using a questionnaire survey to examine and explain the relationships among related variables and their intensity and then apply regression analysis and characteristic equation to find out the forecast of Internet addiction. These studies truly not only helped the academia understand the factors involved in Internet addiction but also offered reference materials for preventing and improving the problems. Nevertheless, there were some limits in these quantitative studies. For example, it is hard to understand the causal relationship among the factors. Also, one-way linear inference ignored the feedback behaviors from Internet addiction toward related factors and fell into one-way think mode. Internet addiction is indeed a mental problem and involves complicated and obscure factors, which usually could be cause and effect of each other. This study aimed to compensate for the loss of dynamic complexity in all kinds of Internet addiction modes in the literature by reviewing important literature, inducing and generalizing dangerous factors and effects, employing system dynamics to construct the dynamic mode of Internet addiction, and applying the picture of causal feedback and the mode of math to see through the structure of movement behind and the interaction among the factors. This study showed five main findings. First, hiding oneself in the Internet world, which could not reduce pressure, only helped obtain a temporary sense of achievement but resulted in severe outcomes, such as the problem of time management and a vicious circle of interpersonal relationship and schoolwork pressure produced by Internet addiction. Second, ¡§withdrawal symptoms¡¨ and ¡§a sense of achievement obtained on the Internet¡¨ were leading indicators for Internet addiction. Third, limiting the amount of time of surfing on the Internet and slackening withdrawal symptoms were temporary solutions to the problem at a later period. Moreover, there was a certain correlation among the critical points of value of withdrawal symptoms, limiting the amount of time of surfing on the Internet, and improving the timing. Fourth, only facing the problem was the ultimate solution to Internet addiction. Finally, the problem of Internet addiction was actually a transformed version of archetype brought up in the book ¡§The Fifth Discipline.¡¨

Based on the theory of System dynamics and by using the methodology of a case study, the researcher explores the factors influencing the shortened product lead time and the stability of the product quality. In Taiwan, the industry of after-market car accessory has been facing the pressure resulted from our competition with mainland China to provide low-price products. Such competition has intensified since frequent business communications and encounters between Taiwan and China take place. In order to thrive in such competition, not only does the industry in Taiwan need to increase its productivity, but it also has to find means to increase the stability of the product quality and to shorten the product lead time. Analyzing it based on the process of a production, one can find that product lead time is influenced by the following three factors: the time required to design the product; to purchase the raw materials; to produce the product. When purchasing raw materials, one has to consider both the materials used in product developing and as well as the ones required to mass production. In addition, the time required to acquire raw materials also depends on the reliability of the up-stream supplier and our relations with them. Last but not least, the time required to acquire raw materials also depend upon how professional the purchaser designated buyer in the company is. The time required to design the product is affected by the R/D engineer¡¦s professionalism and his or her familiarity with the product. Consequently, the time required for designing phase is affected by the possible turn-over of the company¡¦s engineers. Further, the design and equipment of the production line and workers¡¦ familiarity with the production process are all determine factors as to the time required to complete the products. The quality of a product is determined by the quality of the raw materials and the process of mass production. The quality of the out sourced raw materials is affected by the attitude and promptness of the purchasing department of the company. Furthermore, the standard operation process of the production line and the design of all concerned fixtures also affect the product quality during the mass production. By using the Strategy Maps and Balanced Scorecard, one found that, in the case of Company S, the instability of the quality of products and the delayed product lead time were caused by the lack of competency of company buyers, poor management of the supply chains, and ineffectively executed quality control process. In order to improve the situation for Company S, one needs to consider the interactions between all production factors based on the perspectives of the System Thinking. Subsequently, based on analyzing the case of Company S, the current study concludes the following points: 1. Using traditional business management models, the decision-makers cannot detect the dynamics of processes in the company. 2. By only using the Casual Feedback, one cannot easily detect the core of the problem in the company. One also needs to simulate the situation in order to foresee the result. 3. One should use a system dynamic way of thinking to analyze the operations of a corporation in order to foresee potential problems before they arise. 4. The researcher will recommend Company S to establish its own Strategy Mapping, so it can effectively evaluate its policies and strategies. Key Word: System dynamics, System Thinking, Strategy Maps, The Balanced Scorecard, Casual Feedback,

In this thesis, we try to understand the dynamic and complicated problems during operating the English cram school by building up a system dynamics model, and figure out the relation among the key variables. Through simulating the model and testing current policies, we can find out a better operation model and strategy. The key variables in this model are: amount of students, amount of classes, and amount of teachers, teaching quality, and finance. Especially, we add some soft variables in the model, such as: teachers¡¦ pressure and customer cognitive quality. The soft variables are the main connections between the streams, and it is not possible to ignore them while running a business. Conclusion of the thesis: 1. The students enrolling activity should be kept up with the working capacity inside the cram school. Otherwise, the increasing pressure on teachers will cause the teaching quality and reputation decline. 2. In this case, the cram school has a kind policy to help slower students make up their grades, but it¡¦s not the fundamental solution to the problem. If we try to decrease the amount of class per teacher, the slower students will be fewer, teaching quality will be improved and total students number will grow. 3. The advantage of cram school is from teachers¡¦ commitment and stability; a high turnover rate is hard for reputation accumulation, teaching experience sharing, and will also decrease the trust of parents to this cram school.

Abstract At present, most of the enterprises make use of a set of software system of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) in order to improve the internal management, and regards it as the nuclear information system. Their goal is to promote the enterprise's operational benefits (Hong and Kim, 2002) by the synthetic effects. Some enterprises induct do brings certain benefits after using the EPR. However, faces the current violent and competitive environment, the majority of ERP are not able to arrange the uses of resources effectively, which causes the enterprises unable to make the delivery dates of the customers¡¦ orders punctually or causes the enterprises¡¦ original profits reduced due to storing up too much stock for satisfy the delivery dates of the customers¡¦ orders. This research take a T Corporation, one of small and medium manufactures of Taiwan, as an example, this company uses the domestic well-known brand system of ERP as the main information system of the enterprise. After using the producing and managing module of ERP to plan its purchase policy of raw materials for a long time, the material inventory stay at a high level even after several years¡¦ adjustment. In addition, due to the price of copper fluctuated heavily frequently in recent years, not only the inventory cost can¡¦t be controlled well but also the orders are missed usually involving being unable to reflect the cost of raw materials on the customers¡¦ quotes immediately. Therefore, this research takes the System Dynamics which is good at solving the problems of dynamic complexity as a simulated research to practice the models¡¦ constructions and simulations and add the prosperity of system thinking into the business strategy to provides the quantifiable analogue result in order to strengthen the insufficient aspects of products and materials of EPR and to assist the enterprises¡¦ boss to solve those problems of dynamic complexity which are easily been neglect when makes operational strategies.

The Sub-prime loan crisis occurred in America caused from low interest, higher home prices, banks¡¦ greedy securitized mortgage and then, in 2007, invest rate rose, and housing prices dropped sharply. The investors got hit and credit market crunched finally. Before the crisis, the risks were ignored. Banks, hedge funds and insurance companies packaged and repackaged the products as RMBS, CDOS to inventors, and they did buy them a lot all over the world. Nobody knows exactly who owns what by how much that will affected sub-prime mortgage loan. Until 2007 the world turned up-side down, interest rate rose higher and higher, the housing market collapsed, and then Credit rating agencies downgraded to about 1,000 MBS (mortgage-backed securities). In the study will find out how sub-prime loan crisis is happened, when it will be over, as well as the relevant accounting and risk events.

Emergency Department (ED) congestion can be better understood by examining overall system impacts, in particular inpatient admissions and discharges. This study first investigates trends of inpatient admissions, volume of patients in the ED who have been admitted (ED “boarders”), length of stay, and bed resources of three major admitting services at our teaching institution. It was found that patients admitted to the General Internal Medicine (GIM) service constituted the majority of ED boarders by default rather than design, as GIM served as a safety net for specialty services. This study investigates operational factors that impact discharge and found that day of the week and holidays followed by team organization and scheduling are significant predictors of daily variation in discharge rates. Based on these results, next, a system dynamics computer simulation was built to test the impact of various discharge smoothing strategies on the number of ED boarders. Next, this study uses the framework and tools of system dynamics methodology to design a conceptual model of the ED boarder problem that may be used as a generalizable roadmap to create sustainable improvements in ED congestion. Finally, this study introduces a novel real time metric of hospital operational discharge efficiency- daily discharge rate – to bring focus on the underlying causes of discharge variation and help indicate opportunities for improvement.

Emergency Department (ED) congestion can be better understood by examining overall system impacts, in particular inpatient admissions and discharges. This study first investigates trends of inpatient admissions, volume of patients in the ED who have been admitted (ED “boarders”), length of stay, and bed resources of three major admitting services at our teaching institution. It was found that patients admitted to the General Internal Medicine (GIM) service constituted the majority of ED boarders by default rather than design, as GIM served as a safety net for specialty services. This study investigates operational factors that impact discharge and found that day of the week and holidays followed by team organization and scheduling are significant predictors of daily variation in discharge rates. Based on these results, next, a system dynamics computer simulation was built to test the impact of various discharge smoothing strategies on the number of ED boarders. Next, this study uses the framework and tools of system dynamics methodology to design a conceptual model of the ED boarder problem that may be used as a generalizable roadmap to create sustainable improvements in ED congestion. Finally, this study introduces a novel real time metric of hospital operational discharge efficiency- daily discharge rate – to bring focus on the underlying causes of discharge variation and help indicate opportunities for improvement.

A spatial-temporal model is developed for modelling the impacts of simulated coastal zone storm surge and flooding using a combined spatial mapping and system dynamics approach. By coupling geographic information systems (GIS) and system dynamics, the interconnecting components of the spatial-temporal model are used with limited historical data to evaluate storm damage. Overlapping cumulative effects layers in GIS (ArcMap) are used for describing the coastal community’s profile, and a system dynamics feedback model (STELLA) is developed to define the interconnecting component relationships of the community. The component-wise changes to the physical environment, community infrastructure, and socioeconomic resources from the storm surge and seal level rise are examined. These changes are used to assess the impacts of the community system as a whole. For the purpose of illustrating this model, the research is applied specifically to the case of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, a vulnerable coastal city subject to considerable impacts from pending sea level rise and more frequent severe storm surge attributed to the changing climate in the coastal zone.

Zugl.: Mannheim, Univ., Diss., 2007.