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Businesses must change to survive and grow. Why?
- Once productive processes bow to new competition
- New markets challenge current methods
- Government regulation compliance adds work and costs
- Labor market shifts inspire new employee recruitment and retention programs
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Change implies risk. What if the change doesn’t work?
What if things get worse? If the pilot project fails, what do we try next?
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iThink offers a risk-free way to make decisions that drive business improvement.
iThink guides you and your business team through the creation of models
that simulate business processes and scenarios; pointing out the impacts of a new
procedure or policy, and offering opportunity to fix undesirable outcomes. Based
on Systems Thinking, iThink models serve as "practice fields", showing
you outcomes that could be painful, costly, or embarrassing if discovered in reality.
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"iThink and Systems Thinking may well be the tools we need to bring about fundamental improvements in healthcare delivery systems that we must achieve."
—Jim Rogers, Advance Management Group
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What if you radically increased sales and marketing efforts without adding network
bandwidth? Website hits and download demands would go up (good), networks would
go down (bad). iThink helps you identify key leverage points for improving
business performance without losing sight of unintended consequences.
Going beyond spreadsheets and other linear approaches to business planning, iThink
provides a whole system or big picture view of your entire operations. These views
are based on dynamic modeling and Systems Thinking; all points of a system are included
and can be examined or changed in any order. You avoid making decisions that have
negative impacts on seemingly unrelated processes.
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Click to Enlarge Screenshot
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iThink is a powerful tool for communicating interdependencies between processes
and problems. Your entire business team will understand the variables that impact
your business. Shared insight enables teams to work together, further ensuring that
decisions are fully implemented and mitigating risk.
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Use iThink to:
- Reduce the risk of policy or process change
- Identify key leverage points for improving business performance
- Build models that simulate your business
- Create what-if scenarios for decision support
- Develop shared understanding across functional teams
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"Our leadership uses iThink to work through scenarios and discuss new ideas. Its always better to test assumptions than to make a guess.”
—Martin Fernandes, Dow Chemical
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Mapping and Modeling
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Intuitive icon-based graphical interface simplifies model building
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Stock and Flow diagrams support the common language of Systems Thinking and provide
insight into modeled business processes
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Causal Loop Diagrams present overall causal relationships
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Enhanced stock types enable discrete and continuous processes with support for queues,
ovens, and enhanced conveyors
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Model equations are automatically generated and made accessible beneath the model
layer
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Built-in functions facilitate mathematical, statistical, and logical operations
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Multi-dimensional arrays simply represent repeated model structure
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Modules support multi-level, hierarchical model structures that can serve as “building
blocks” for model construction
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XML-based model files support the new industry standard for common interchange of system dynamics models |
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Simulation and Analysis
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Simulations "run" processes represented in models
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Sensitivity analysis reveals key leverage points and optimal conditions
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Partial model simulations focus analysis on specific sectors or modules of the model
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Results presented as graphs, tables, animations, QuickTime movies, and files
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Data Manager archives and recalls simulation run data stored in a separate SQLite database file
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Dynamic data import/export links to Microsoft® Excel
or CSV files |
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Communication
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Flight simulators and dashboards describe model components and facilitate manipulation
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Input devices include knobs, sliders, switches, and buttons
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Output devices highlight outcomes with warning flashers, text, graphs, tables, and
reports
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Storytelling supports step-by-step model unveiling
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Causal Loop Diagrams present dominant feedback loops within structure
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Export for NetSim supports publishing and sharing model over the web using
isee NetSim add-on software
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isee Runtime options support full-screen presentation of models so they can be easily shared or commercially distributed |
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Multimedia support for graphics, movies, sounds, and text messages
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Model security features allow locking or password protection
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For Windows:
Microsoft Windows™ XP/Vista/7
256 MB RAM
200 MB disk space
QuickTime |
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For Macintosh:
Intel-based Mac
Mac OS 10.5 or higher
256 MB RAM
200 MB disk space
QuickTime
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