MGT603: System Thinking Approach to Issues at ADM Australia

This essay delves into the operational challenges faced by ADM Australia PTY Ltd, a subsidiary of Archer Daniels Midland Company, focusing on supply shortages stemming from strained relationships with local farmers. The analysis employs a system thinking approach, specifically utilizing the CATWOE framework, to understand the multifaceted nature of the problem. The essay highlights the company's struggle to secure crop supplies due to farmers preferring competitors and a lack of proactive relationship management by ADM Australia PTY Ltd. The application of soft system thinking is proposed as a potential solution, emphasizing self-reflexivity, action research, and learning from human experiences to address the issues at various levels, including supply acquisition and farmer engagement. The essay concludes by underscoring the importance of holistic solutions in resolving ADM Australia PTY Ltd's challenges within the food industry.

Running head: SYSTEM THINKING
System Thinking
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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ADM Australia PTY Ltd:
The ADM Australia PTY Ltd is operating in Australia for quite a long time and this
organization is related with the food ingredient supply and agricultural manufacturing. The
ADM Australia PTY Ltd is the part of Archer Daniels Midland Company which is an
international company and serving over 160 nations and one of them is Australia. The main
business of the ADM Australia is focused on connecting or creating a network among
agricultural product producers and the organizations present in the food industry. Currently
this organization has its presence over 160 countries all over the world which makes the
business standing of this organization very much strong. Though this organization has a
strong presence in the global market it is facing various types of operational issues that is
affecting its performance negatively.
Here the main issue which is faced by the ADM Australia PTY Ltd is the supply
shortage related issues. The ADM Australia PTY Ltd acts as a contractor between the farmers
and the food industries that requires crops for producing foods. Thus the main objective of
ADM Australia PTY Ltd is buying crops from the farmers of Australia and exporting them
outside of the country where they can sell it for some good rate to the food industries
(Morandi et al., 2014). Here the actual problem is that most of the farmers are not willing to
sell their crops to the ADM Australia PTY Ltd, instead of them farmers are proffering other
market competitors of ADM Australia PTY Ltd as they are finding some goods rate there.
Also, another potential reason is that the relation among the ADM Australia PTY Ltd and the
farmers are not very good as there was no intention of ADM Australia PTY Ltd for
improving the relationship. For this reason the ADM Australia PTY Ltd is struggling to get a
larger amount of market share. Also the management has not initiated any type of campaign
which will attract the farmers towards ADM Australia PTY Ltd for signing the contract. All

2SYSTEM THINKING
of this issues combined depleting the success rate of the ADM Australia PTY Ltd within the
food industry.
CATWOE Table:
Clients Farmers or the Farm Owners, Management,
Food Industries
Actor Staff and Employees
Transformation Creating good relationship with clients
Worldwide Increasing the number of clients, both the
farmers and the food industry
Owners Archer Daniel Midlands
Environment Internal regulations and corporate terms
By reflecting the holistic view on the issues of the organisation more details can be
found, thus developing necessary solutions will become easier (Pereira et al., 2015). In this
case approach of the soft system thinking can be used for developing the solution regarding
the issues of the ADM Australia PTY Ltd as the system thinking approach focuses on the vast
learning part of the actual solution (Mingers, 2014). The soft system thinking approach is
capable of providing solution to this problem as it is based on the self-reflexivity, action
research and the learning and human experience (Checkland, 2013). Here the ADM Australia
PTY Ltd is facing the problems on different levels. First it is not getting enough supply from
the farmers and secondly the management is failed to attract the farmers towards their
organization.

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References:
Checkland, P. (2013). Soft systems methodology. Encyclopedia of operations research and
management science, 1430-1436.
Mingers, J. (2014). Systems thinking, critical realism and philosophy: A confluence of ideas.
Routledge.
Morandi, M. I. W. M., Rodrigues, L. H., Lacerda, D. P., & Pergher, I. (2014). Foreseeing iron
ore prices using system thinking and scenario planning. Systemic Practice and Action
Research, 27(3), 287-306.
Pereira, T. F., Montevechi, J. A. B., Miranda, R. D. C., & Friend, J. D. (2015). Integrating
soft systems methodology to aid simulation conceptual modeling. International
Transactions in Operational Research, 22(2), 265-285.