Industrial Dynamics for Corporate understanding of decision processes in management, R&D, marketing through quantified analysis.
MJMcCann Consulting
Click to Home Page

Industrial Dynamics Applied
I provide individual, independent,consulting services for large and small industrial and business clients to help with problems in management, planning, manufacturing or marketing, to develop better methods or better understanding of production, distribution and business processes by working with their staff and managers to get to the point where together we can not only explain logically what is going on, but can be sure enough of our understanding that we can calculate and put numbers to things; to quantify our answers.
As well as the normal Operations Research tools, there is an underlying theme which goes back to the ideas of Jay W. Forrester, applying the concepts of engineering dynamic systems analysis to business and micro-economics: "Industrial Dynamics", MIT Press, 1961

Practical Answers with realistic numbers
The objective is to give practical quantified solutions, based on being able to quantify the important factors and take the guesswork out of the business decision making processes. The dynamic, time dependent behaviour of the business activity is reproduced, with graphical and numerical outputs.

Dynamo Language
Jay Forrester was responsible for the creation of the DYNAMO (DYNamic MOdeling) language in which the earlier examples of the applications of Industrial and Urban and World dynamics were programmed. In effect it was a simulation language, where dynamic systems are described by their causal relationships. Dynamo persisted in various forms till the early 1980s.
My own first applications were done using IBM360 CSMP in the late 1960s. Now the functionality is available using tools like Matlab/Simulink, or the open source (free) SciLab and Xcos. I have made a very simple (also free) tool McSimAPN that will give the user the ability to make the models and run them, hands on, like an analog simulator, which is pretty much where Jay Forrester started.

Applications
I (and my staff and colleagues) applied the ideas to:

  • Marketing pharmaceutical products,
  • Assessing the value of TV Advertising,
  • Predicting long term Housing Demand using underlying demographics, rather than statistical correlations based on past events,
  • Understanding the behaviour of the changing post war UK automobile market, where again there was no statistical basis for rational projections,
  • Merging market research with long term install and renewal dynamic behaviour of a wallcoverings market,
  • Comparing the reality of actual business growth, bringing together corporate cash flow and financing, with the projected benefits of capital investment on major projects.
  • Investigating the effect of business growth on career prospects for established employees and new recriuts.
  • Other Experience
    My experience with problems over these time scales is that people rarely expand their time horizons far enough to see the whole picture. Even if they try, they tend to miss interaction effects and think more in terms of extrapolating, sometimes with statistical models, from the recent past.
    That statistical approach can be a powerful diagnostic and relationship identifying tool, but doesn't tell much about causality or accomodate the common sense knowledge that people have about what is happening or might be happening. Building the causal models provides for the incorporation and testing of that understanding. When the casual model can generate statistically equivalent results we know we are gaining understanding.
    My (MJMcC) observation is that the demographics and the compelling force of reality can be quantified to make a big improvement in perception. You only have to contact me to get help!

    How I work with clients. I don't start with preconceived ideas about what wiil be good for a client's business. My style of working is to contribute to a project or department by acting as advisor, toolmaker and problem solver, by adding special experience and skills and by being able to give the independent view of things that is so hard to find inside many organisations.
    You can find out more about how I work with clients, confidentiality, ethics, fees etc on the contact page of this website.

    Links in website:
    Home/Index Page

    About Dr McCann
    Summary
    Dr M.J.McCann
    Training Courses
    Bristol University Contacting me
    Contact in UK
    Location USA
    Philosophy
    Software Tools
    Fees
    Confidentiality

    Click to Applications PageApplications

    Business & Commerce
    TV Advertising
    Drugs Competition
    Housing Demand
    Automobiles Demand
    Wallcoverings Battle
    Cash Flow
    Human Resources
    Project Management
    Patent Analysis

    Chemical Industry
    Cooling Tower
    Fermentation
    Polymer Process
    Heat exchange
    Supercritical Fluid
    Distributed parameter
    Toxic gas allocation

    Electrical
    Control systems
    Initiation systems
    Ferrite Filters
    Microstrip Antennas
    Lightning

    Production & Process
    Automated manufacture
    Crimp and Press
    Glass making
    Glass molding
    Glass to metal seals
    Heat exchanger
    Helium Leak Testing
    RF Soldering
    Vacuum web coating

    Click to Applications PageApplications.

    Invitation. McCann can help if you have a design or operational problem that needs some technical support that is outside your team's experience, some quantitative assessment of what is really the cause of the difficulties, some design alternatives or just a fresh look by an intelligent interrogator.
    If you have a problem with the behaviour of a market sector, plant, process or item of equipment and would like to get a quantitative handle on it to improve yield or optimise performance, then contact me. I'm always ready to give a little time to discuss a new puzzle, in confidence, of course. We'll only worry about fees when there is some defined work. I can be flexible about how I work with you.
    Top
    Dr M.J.McCann,
    POB 902,
    Chadds Ford PA
    19317 USA.
    T: 1 302 654-2953
    M: 1 302 377-1508 (Cell)
    E: mjmccann@ieee.org
    Request. Please let me know how you found this website and your interests by following this feedback link. Thank you Date: 2014.08.23
    File: industdynam.htm