"Systems Analysis in Economic Management," Chernyak Yu.I., 1975
In what situations of economic management does the need for systems analysis arise?
No one has ever attempted to classify situations of economic management, and it is doubtful whether this is even possible. Therefore, the 12 types of management situations listed below should be regarded as a non-rigorous and by no means exhaustive classification.
Systems analysis is applicable in the following situations:
- When solving new problems, where systems analysis is used to formulate the problem, determine what needs to be known and about what, and who should have this knowledge.
- When the solution of a problem requires linking goals with a multitude of means for their achievement.
- When a problem has far-reaching connections that cause distant consequences across different sectors of the national economy, and decision-making requires accounting for total effectiveness and total costs.
- In solving all problems where there exist various alternatives that are difficult to compare, or where an interconnected set of goals must be achieved.
- In all cases where entirely new systems are being created in the national economy (for example, when a communications system is being fundamentally restructured).
- In cases where improvement, enhancement, or reconstruction of production or economic relations is underway.
- In all problems related to the automation of production and especially management, in the process of creating automated management systems at any level.
- In any work on improving the methods and forms of economic management, it is well known that no single method of economic management operates on its own; rather, it operates only in a certain combination, in interconnection with others.
- In cases where the improvement of the organization of production or management, or the creation of an automated management system, is carried out on unique, atypical objects distinguished by the great specificity of their operations, where one cannot act by analogy.
- In cases where decisions are made for the future, the development of a plan or development program must take into account the factor of uncertainty and risk.
- In all cases where planning or the making of critical decisions about development directions is undertaken for a sufficiently distant future (15–25 years).
- In any development or improvement of a management system where the intent is to create an optimal planning or management system requiring the formulation of the very criteria of optimality, taking into account the goals of the economic system's development and functioning, its place in the social division of labor, and its economic interrelationships.