Systems and Process Engineering

None

The course deals with the basics of system analysis from the perspective of technical cybernetics. Building on this, concepts for the process-oriented description of companies as a value-added chain as well as the role of business process management are dealt with:

• Systemic and cybernetic thinking: system boundaries, part and whole, cause and effect, structure and behaviour (=> system analysis)
• System characteristics: negative and positive feedback, control and regulation, stability and instability and system response
• Discussion and application of the basic cybernetic principles for system analysis and system design using examples from technology, nature and economy.
• Process-oriented view on companies. The company as a value chain. Primary and secondary processes in companies. Tasks of process management. Process management as a control loop.
• Environmental management as a business process in companies: Objectives and role, tasks, sub-processes and interactions with primary and secondary processes

This event promotes systems thinking and a process-oriented view of companies. It imparts technical and methodological competencies (F/M) in cybernetic basics of systems as well as in the analysis, modelling and optimisation of processes in companies. The students

• are familiar with principles of qualitative cybernetic system analysis (including system boundaries, part and whole, structure and behaviour, cause and effect) and can apply these to systems in the environment, technology and economy.
• are familiar with the principle of negative feedback, basic elements of control loops, elementary functions on a qualitative level (including system response, stability, instability, equilibrium and self-regulation), can explain these and apply them to technical, ecological and economic systems
• can describe a company from a process-oriented perspective as a value-added chain, differentiate between core processes and support processes, explain the objectives and tasks of process management.
• can describe environmental management as a business process in the company, and can identify and classify interrelationships, interactions and interfaces.

The joint discussion of basic principles of cybernetic systems analysis and process management also promotes social and communicative skills (S/K) and self-competence (S).

•     Integrated course
•     Group work and presentation

• Written examination (50 %)
• Business game (25 %)
• Report (25 %)

For a positive grade, a minimum of 50% of the possible points must be achieved in each part of the examination.

None

• Jeschke, Sabina et al. (2015): Exploring Cybernetics: Cybernetics in interdisciplinary discourse. 1st edition 2015;1st edition 2015; Wiesbaden: Springer Trade Media Wiesbaden
• Küppers, E. W. Udo (2019): A transdisciplinary introduction to the world of cybernetics: principles, models, theories and practical examples. Wiesbaden: Springer Trade Media Wiesbaden
• Rehm, Sven-Volker; Fischer, Thomas (2017): Cybernetics and Transformation: Regulation and Communication in Organisation and Society. 31 Berlin: Duncker & Humblot
• Schwarz, Lothar; Neumann, Tim; Teich, Tobias (2018): Modelling business processes in a practice-oriented way: Manual for the reduction of complexity. 1st ed. 2018. Berlin: Springer Gabler.
• Schmelzer, Hermann J.; Sesselmann, Wolfgang (2013): Business process management in practice: satisfying customers - increasing productivity - increasing value. 8th, revised and expanded. Munich: Carl Hanser Publisher GmbH & Co. KG.
• Förtsch, Gabi; Meinholz, Heinz (2018): Handbook on Corporate Environmental Management. 3rd ed. Springer Vieweg. Online on the Internet: DOI: 10.1007/978-3-658-19151-1 (accessed on: 03.07.2020).
• Haberfellner, Reinhard (2015): Systems Engineering: Fundamentals and Application. 13th, updated edition. Zurich: Orell Füssli

•     Presence event
•     attendance requirements will be determined at the beginning of the event