The Dynamics of a Network of Production Systems

Abstract

Section 8.3 discussed the maintenance of output equilibrium in Philips Industries in the ‘frequency domain’. The present chapter will discuss the same issue in the ‘time domain’: instead of treating the sensitivity of the system to various frequencies in the demand process, the effects of changes in demand or sales on the variation of production and inventory with time will be studied. The central problem is again the internal business cycle discussed in section 8.3, i.e. the generation of cyclic behaviour as illustrated in Fig. 20. The analysis will again be confined to the level of the factories and the sales organizations: a network of conversion systems with buffered connections.