阿波罗轮胎有限公司的研究

产业氛围变得越来越沉重并且高度竞争。合资企业、合作伙伴关系和分包协议面临着越来越大的挑战。传统的管理方法往往不能在这些情况下进行，管理者需要考虑采取替代方法来解决这些难题。软系统方法论（SSM）是一种用于分析和解决复杂和混乱情形下问题的系统。软系统方法论在行动研究、学习和思考并且帮助不同的人面临不同情况下的想法。它特别适合于复杂的管理系统，，并试图评估许多不同的选择成为可能。

阿波罗轮胎有限公司
阿波罗轮胎有限公司是印度最大的化学制造商之一。它是轮胎和乳胶行业化学品最大的制造商之一。它的客户包括印度的轮胎巨头像MRF,CEAT和国际制造商普利司通。阿波罗轮胎有限公司生产各种橡胶，以及生产各种橡胶制品使用的化学品。他公司这些产品在印度享有的主要市场份额，并且大批量出口到东南亚，欧洲等地方。它有四个工厂，拥有近500名员工。公司的工厂主要位于工业区。不过该公司的唯一业务是化学品，还没有多元化。

The industrial atmosphere is becoming highly competitive and most critical. The challenge is increasing where joint ventures, partnerships and sub-contracting agreements are involved. The traditional approaches to construction management often fail to perform in these situations, and managers need to consider adopting alternative approaches to solve these difficult problems. Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is a systems approach that is used for analysis and problem solving in complex and messy situations. SSM uses systems thinking” in a cycle of action research, learning and reflection to help understand the various perceptions that exist in the minds of the different people involved in the situation. It is particularly suited to complex management systems, and seeks to evaluate as many different options as possible.

APOLLO TYRES LTD.

Apollo Tyres limited is one of India's biggest chemical manufactures. The Company is one of the biggest manufactures for chemicals used in the tyre and latex industry. Its Clients include Indian tyre majors like MRF , CEAT and international manufactures like Bridgestone. Apollo Tyres limited manufactures various rubber, chemicals used in the production of various rubber products. The company enjoys a major market share of these products in India and also exports large quantities to South East Asia, Europe, etc. It has four Factories and employs nearly 500 employees. The company's factories are located mostly in industrial areas. However the company's only business is chemicals and it has not yet diversified.

In Recent years the business environment has changed rapidly. Chemical business has been in a state of flux, with new products frequently coming to market. Many small and efficient firms have managed to take advantage of this situation to establish them and to gain a reputation for producing and delivering chemicals quickly and cheaply to customer requirements.

Apollo has been unable to adapt satisfactorily to change circumstances and this has shown in disappointing financial returns. Its research and development is not functioning properly and the company is not getting the investment returns.  Inevitably it has fallen behind its competitors in product development.

It takes time for problems to show big impact on companies. When a company grows big it is very difficult to find a solution as each problems are interrelated. Use of Various methodologies' gives a solution, which can improve the situation. Lets us analyze and solve Apollo problems using Soft system methodology.

SOFT SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY  软系统方法论

SSM has been developed at Lancaster University over the last 30 years, through action research. The methodology has developed mainly as a result of consultancy work. As more experience was gained dealing with different sorts of problem situations, the learning was analysed and incorporated into the methodology. What we have as a result is a generic methodology which should be adapted to any given situation.

SSM study is all about finding the stages of the problems, the outcome of which is captured in a "rich picture" of the problem situation. A rich picture is a representation of the problem situation, presented usually in the form of a drawing, which makes explicit a range of diverse viewpoints concerning issues, conflicts and difficulties. It draws attention to cultural and political aspects of the problem situation and attempts to provide a complete picture of the real situation.

SSM deals with problem formulation at the strategic level. It partly aims to structure previously unstructured situations, rather than to solve well-structured problems. It deals with "fuzzy" problem situations - situations where people are viewed not as passive objects, but as active subjects, where objectives are unclear or where multiple objectives may exist.

Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) has long been involved in information systems development through the medium of action research. Its social constructivist paradigm and managerial focus distinguish it from most software engineering development approaches. Check land's underlying view of systems development, however, is heavily influenced by traditional waterfall models - something of a contradiction

CHECKLAND'S SOFT SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY 切克兰德的软系统方法论

The Checkland methodology, or the seven-stage model, is considered by most people to be the SSM. However, SSM covers a range of methodologies developed to deal with different situations.

The seven stages are:

1 The problem situation unstructured;
2 The problem situation expressed;
3 Root definitions of relevant systems;
4 Deriving conceptual models;
5 Comparing conceptual models with the "real" world;
6 Defining feasible, desirable changes;
7 Taking action.

PROBLEMS FACED BY APOLLO TYRES LTD.  阿波罗轮胎有限公司面临的问题

The Company had to face many problems in employing employee relation the situation within the production function itself was also at crisis. Traditionally Apollo's Managements felt that employees didn't work hard and impose close supervision and control over subordinates. This had thus degenerated into management by threat as market pleasures and procedures being enforced. There were many errors and mistakes leading to high levels of waste, spoiled works and low quality problems, and this has increased cost. Morale was extremely low and often resulted from the poor quality materials with which they were worked, they refused to collaborate with their supervisors and industrial relation problems between management and unions or shop stewards were frequent.

The Problems faced by the company has to be viewed in terms of the SSM methodologies. The inbuilt differences in management systems prevailed in the company have concentrated small issues that could have been solved easily into big problems that cast a lasting shadow on the company as a whole itself. This state of affairs of the company can be explained in terms of the problems it faces.  Some of them are listed below:

Decreased market share
Profit has declined
Low employee morale
Frequent individual actions
Hostile environment
Decreased Quality
Failure to the cope with the emerging trends as a result of liberalization and globalization.

If the Company could address these problems effectively it can come out of this mess. These problems are basically structural in nature, not technological. Hence by using SSM Methodology these problems could be tackled.

In terms of external and internal problems the company could have done with a well-trained and highly aware management team. Infact this was lacking .The management jobs were specialized and there was little team spirit or there was not a will to change

ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS  环境问题

It was all working fine for the company when the people staying in the local area started agitating for closure of its major factories due to pollution issues. Due to this production had to be stopped for a couple of months, during which the company lost nearly 12 lakhs rupees a day. The Factories had to be then locked, after the court gave order for closure of factory due to pollution. However again after two months the company obtained a stay order from high court with conditions of not producing some chemicals until some checks have been made. This led to low production and low capacity utilization, which affected the company's overall financial results.

Even though the company was able to solve its problems in courts, it was not able to settle issues with the agitating people in the local areas who always tried to create problems there, which in turn reflected the company's image. Agitations led to low level of productions and company's competitors began to improve their market presence.The company didn't maintain a good public relations and it didn't have anyone in the top Management to deal with these issues. The Company didn't have good communication with the outside world. It Public relation was so bad that it didn't do any thing to respond to the news which came on newspaper and televisions.

POLITICAL PROBLEMS  政治问题

Due to heavy agitation on pollution issues, some local political organization began to extend their support and sympathy to those people keeping in mind the vote bank of that area. Also the state is dominated by many trade unions, which are communist, and soon political groups soon started creating problems for Merchem. A Company, which was for years talking care of its employees by themselves, found it hard to deal the situation as its management has less experience in dealing with political parties

The management was not able to deal nicely with the unions and they felt humiliated. The unions hence began interfering in all the company activities

SSM FOR MANAGEMENT:
One of the major reasons for the problems of the company was the management's inability to understand the complex situation in the organization. Unlike many companies it was not professionally managed but was managed by family. The management was actually driven away by the firm's previous success and assumed that the company's present name would keep the company going on. They were wrong, because market changed, people changed not the management.

SSM FOR HR:
One of the major areas where we had to use SSM and where we didn't use SSM was Human Resources management's. SSM can be used as a vehicle for developing competitiveness in human resource management. The benefits of SSM are based on its underlying interpretive assumptions, the distinctive way in which conceptual models are used to create learning and insight, and other aspects of systems thinking, notably the guidance embodied in its technology, and its use of the systems concepts of hierarchy and holism. Any information, which is a potential source of insight about the kinds of competences, needed, either currently or in the future, are relevant and should be included. In most organizations people hold differing opinions on the aims being pursued and the problems and issues in the situation as it currently exists, or as it might exist given certain defined scenarios. The rich picture should embody the full diversity of these viewpoints. At this point there should be no attempt to deny the applicability or relevance of minority opinions, or opinions which run counter to the official line. In fact, counter-viewpoints can lead to creative insights, which may not emerge if discussion is limited to perspectives compatible with the currently prevailing ideology. In the rich picture it should be possible to visualize how individual activities, issues or problems fit into the broader context within which these are located.

After the initial rich picture has been developed and broad themes identified, a range of task and issue models based on different Weltanschauungen should be constructed and contrasted with the real world situation. In most SSM projects, a combination of task and issue systems is included, and this is advocated here. Task systems represent official pronouncements about the identity of an organization or what a particular job involves. Issue systems may represent continuous aspects of a job or contain ideas about what it means to be a member of a particular organization, which are not formally sanctioned. Often, when individuals are being questioned directly about competences, these unofficial aspects of work do not surface. They can, however, be very important. Cultural and political aspects of work, for example, are especially important, and often warrant further attention. Sometimes achieving a better "fit" between individuals and these contextual and informal features of their work is more important than ensuring that individuals satisfy technical competence criteria.

The problem is most noticeable when a group of individuals are placed in a focus group and asked to recount their ideas about the competences required in their work, or to describe the differences between good and bad performers. Difficulties arise when such beliefs are abstracted from the broader pattern of ideas and worldviews, which give them meaning. When the data are aggregated, as they usually are, much of the meaning is lost. In SSM, the concern, always, is with wholes and the underlying worldviews, which provide the crucial meaning. Meaning is explored and made explicit. It is not neutralized through a process of aggregation. If one accepts the idea that potentially there are a number of possible ways of doing a job well, aggregating data does not make a lot of sense. The results can be costly. Potential recruits may slip through the net because they fail to match aggregated criteria, which, at best, may bear only a tenuous relationship to the way in which the job would be done. At worst, the criteria may be completely irrelevant. Equally, current staff can become dissatisfied and disillusioned when meaningless criteria are applied in evaluating their performance.

To the extent that any aspect of the HRM process privileges a particular worldview and takes this as a given aspect of the design brief, it suggests an orientation towards hard systems thinking. Often HRM appears to assume that the overall aims and objectives of the organization, or any of its sub-units, may be defined unequivocally without any serious investigation or reflection on the veracity of dominant viewpoints. Moreover it often appears that analyzing job or organizational requirements is largely unproblematic, that these may be defined objectively and unambiguously. To some extent this is true. There are basic skills associated with the job of brain surgeon that are fundamentally different from those required of a social worker, for example. Clearly as one move away from broad technical competences into the domain of attitudes, values and behavioral styles, the idea that such requirements may be defined objectively becomes increasingly less tenable.

SSM FOR QUALITY:
Merchem being a big player in chemical industry the problem was always maintain the quality issues. The company was able to maintain quality, but due to problems it was not able to maintain consistency in quality. The company has to establish a prevention approach to quality. The aim should be to get the right things from output requirements that should be regulated immediately. Nonconformance to requirement was eliminated. Employees should be motivated to own quality themselves.

SSM FOR MARKETING:
Marketing knowledge is accumulating in an inexorable, although slow, process, through the exchange of knowledge, mainly via the print media (systems). Various journals have taken an explicit interest in this process. The inputs to this are primarily submitted or commissioned articles/books (product) - generically the expression of ideas. The communication organs - primarily books and journals - generally involve independent editorial (including double-blind refereeing) (technique) and organisational and financial inputs (transactions). Through the conventions of attribution of sources, the stock of knowledge potentially passes into collective ownership (implementation).

According to Checkland a root definition is well formulated if it covers the elements in the mnemonic CATWOE.

C : (customers). Who are the system's victims or beneficiaries?

A : (actors). Who would do these activities?

T : (transformation process). What input is turned into what output?

W : (Weltanschauung). The worldview that makes this definition meaningful.

O : (owners). Who could abolish this system?

E : (environmental constraints). What does this system take as given?

Nevertheless, the written expression of a root definition should be concise and capture a particular, but not the only, view of the human activity system. The creation of a root definition should interact, through iteration, with the step where there is comparison of the conceptual models with the problem situation as expressed.

The firm has poor communication with its markets and plays no role trying to nurture its environment. Apollo marketing has been far too passive in the face of aggressive tactics from competitors. It sales force lacks proper training and professionalism and doesn't seem motivated to establish and develop customer relations. Sales people are not able to service customers properly because of the simple lack of knowledge about what the company can offer.

CONCLUSION 结论

The structured thinking, basically aims to bring about improvements in a situation. We must express a paradigm that is “in terms with epistemology.” No automatic assumptions can be made, and each approach must be made with concise on moving from one world to another. This approach, which was designed to be used in many different situations, may be interpreted differently by each user.  This system as explained above is used or derives from what our own worldviews and language are.  It is meant to be interpreted rather than expressed from the paradigm. Meaning each person is to make his or her own viewpoint, not one viewpoint for everyone.  Each person must take the paradigm/concept given and make his or her own ideas

RECOMMENDATIONS 建议

High standards of quality and product consistency should be maintained.
Enhanced quality management program
New approaches like using systems that might help them to improve its quality program.
Efficient planning process for Human resources and training.
The environmental issues can be solved by decreasing the pollution.
The political issues can be solved by making the union leader understand about the employee benefits.