Systems Thinking Application: Analyzing Woolworths' Inventory Woes

This report addresses the inventory management issues faced by Woolworths Limited, an Australian grocery store chain, using a systems thinking approach. The core problem identified is the fluctuating inventory levels, leading to customer dissatisfaction and operational inefficiencies. The report highlights the impact on stakeholders, including customers, management, and staff. It proposes a systems thinking framework involving the recognition of suffering, analysis of causes, and proposal of solutions to address the root causes of the inventory problems. The proposed solution emphasizes better decision-making to meet customer demands and improve inventory management, assuming users have adequate knowledge of inventory management principles. The report concludes by referencing relevant academic sources to support the analysis and proposed framework.

Running head: SYSTEMS THINKING
Assignment 1 - Systems Thinking
Part A: Proposal Individual
Student Name:
University Name:

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Problem Statement
The discussions carried out in this post are focused on “Woolworths Limited” which is
leading shopping website serving as a grocery store in Australia. In the past years, it has grown
and expanded within Australia with huge customer base. However, the business is facing some
operational issues due to inventory management. The scenario that has been identified is there is
sometimes excess stock and sometimes there is shortage of inventory. This situation eventually
leads to dissatisfaction of the customers thus affecting the organizational performance. There is
increasing competition from other businesses and demand of customers are also increasing with
time as they require faster and cheaper services.
Intended or unintended consequences on various stakeholders
The major stakeholders associated with the business is Customers who are vital for
performance of the organization. The customers forms a major part of the organization that are
mostly the people residing within Australia. The consequence of the identified issues is that the
customers may lose their interest on the business and services provided by Woolworths Limited.
Further, the management of organization is also affected due to the problems in the
current business process. The management executives are facing difficulty while managing their
operations due to excess or shortage of inventory. The staffs of the organization are also affected
by the identified issues as they often have to increase their working hours for proper
management of inventory.
Concept of Systems Thinking
It has been determined that systems thinking approach will help to solve the identified
issues within the organization. This approach is holistic as it focuses on the interrelation among

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the parts of a system (Haines, 2016). This approach will help to solve the existing issues through
proper problem solving. With the help of this approach, the management will be able to make
better decisions such that the increased demand of the customers could be fulfilled along with
proper management of inventory. The systems thinking approach will be able to provide more
effective result while solving complex problems.
Recommendations for solving problems using Systems Thinking Approach
For solving the identified problems using system thinking approach within Woolworths
Limited, a Systems Thinking Framework is proposed which will provide guidance to gather
essential information. The framework can be used to develop some ideas so that problem solving
will be done with the help of systems approach. The framework will comprise of mainly two
components that is essential data and systems thinking process. The essential data can be utilized
for gathering and analyzing the information of supply along with demand. The implementation
of systems thinking approach for solving the problems will be done in three steps as below:
1. Recognition of suffering – In this step, the situation of the company along with
inventory system will be analyzed. Then, the unwanted or undesirable event will be identified
and the event will be considered as suffering which means impact of the problem.
2. Analysis on the cause of suffering – The cause that is leading to the undesirable event
will be identified in this step. After identification of causes behind the problem, a conceptual
solution will be proposed to proceed onto the next that is final step.
3. Proposal of solution – In this step, the proposed solution is developed by combining
the conceptual solution and some nature of the business. However, the solution will be developed
assuming that the users have proper knowledge on inventory management.

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References
Arnold, R. D., & Wade, J. P. (2015). A definition of systems thinking: a systems
approach. Procedia Computer Science, 44, 669-678.
Glasson, J., & Gibbons, P. (2015). Understanding the context of the organisation: adopting a
systems thinking approach to asset management.
Haines, S. (2016). The systems thinking approach to strategic planning and management. CRC
Press.
Yaqoob, T., Usama, M., Qadir, J., & Tyson, G. (2018). On Analyzing Self-Driving Networks: A
Systems Thinking Approach. arXiv preprint arXiv:1804.03116.