Current Methodological Problems of Systems Analysis and Its Application

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the historical background of systems analysis, current methodological problems of systems analysis, and its application. A part of the basic thesis of the workshop sponsors is that the smooth stage of systems analysis development is over and there are signs of current difficulties in its application to practical problems. The methodological features of the operational research approach may be easily traced using the example of the well-known cost-efficiency method, considered by many as an integral part of systems analysis. Originally cost-efficiency models were developed just like models in operational research (transportation problems, assignment problems and the like). It was supposed that a researcher was able to define objectively the existing features of a problem and to reflect them in the model, and that the studied phenomena lacked behavioral freedom. The difference in the approach to synthesizing the cost and efficiency estimates boiled down to the consideration of the decision maker's opinion.