3.3 Laws and principles of cybernetics applied in the management of organizations

To clarify the essence of control and to consider the problems of its organization and efficiency, it is important to establish a link between control theory and cybernetics.

The word "cybernetics" * originated in ancient Greece. It was first pronounced long before our era by the philosopher Plato, producing it from the Greek word cybernus, which meant helmsman. That is why the ancient art of controlling a ship can serve as the first symbol of cybernetics.

In the middle of the twentieth century, the mathematician N. Wiener introduced this concept into this concept. Cybernetics - the science of managing complex dynamic systems and processes. The object of study of this science are systems of any nature, capable of perceiving, storing and processing information and using it for management and regulation. System * (from Greek: composed of parts, connection) is one of the basic concepts of cybernetics.

The emergence of cybernetics — the science of general patterns in control processes carried out in living beings, machines, and their complexes — made it possible to collect and summarize a huge amount of facts that showed that the control process in all organized systems is similar. The differences in the management of objects relate to the criteria of purpose, objectives and content management. However, the structure and construction of management processes in organized systems of any ranks have the features of deep similarity and generality. This circumstance is explained by the fact that the management process is always an information process.

Cybernetics studies the processes of receiving and transmitting, accumulating and transforming, processing and using information in machines, living organisms and their associations. The establishment of a link between management and information processes is the most important achievement of cybernetics. It allows you to understand the technology of the management process and, most importantly, to subject it to the study of quantitative methods. A distinctive feature of the cybernetic approach to the knowledge and improvement of management processes is the use of their counterparts in animate and inanimate nature and modeling. The main task of cybernetics is to achieve, on the basis of its inherent methods and means, an optimal level of management, that is, to make the best management decisions. Thus, cybernetic is called such a control, which:

• considers the organization as some big system, each element of which is taken not only by itself, but also as part of a large aggregate into which it belongs;
• provides the optimal solution of multivariate dynamic tasks of the organization;
• uses specific methods advanced by cybernetics (feedback, self-regulation and self-organization, etc.);
• widely applies mechanization and automation of management work based on the use of computing and control equipment and computer technology.

Thanks to this interpretation, cybernetics * finds practical application in various fields of human activity, including economic. Its application to the economy received the name of economic cybernetics, which is considered as "the use of scientific approaches, the main complex of concepts and scientific tools of cybernetics for the study of economic phenomena and the solution of practical economic problems.

From cybernetics, management borrows the following laws and principles of the required diversity, emergence * , external addition, feedback, decision choice, decomposition, as well as the hierarchy of control and automatic regulation (self-regulation). Consider these laws and principles from the point of view of their relationship with the management of the organization.

The law of the required diversity. According to the definition of William R. Ashby, the first fundamental law of cybernetics is that the diversity of a complex system requires control, which itself has some diversity. In other words, the considerable variety of disturbances affecting a large and complex system requires an adequate diversity of its possible states. If there is no such adequacy in the system, then this is a consequence of the violation of the principle of integrity of its constituent parts (subsystems), namely, the insufficient diversity of elements in the organizational structure (structure) of the parts.

Limiting the diversity in the behavior of a managed object is achieved only by increasing the diversity of the governing body (management teams). To achieve a minimum of a variety of output reactions (performance) of the system, the governing body must be capable of generating a certain minimum of commands and signals. If its power is below the minimum, it is not able to provide full control.

The management process ultimately boils down to reducing the diversity of the states of the controlled system, to reducing its uncertainty. In accordance with this law, as the complexity of the managed system increases, the complexity of the controlled unit should also increase. Therefore, the increasing complexity of the management apparatus of corporations, holding companies, financial and industrial groups, and so on, organizations and their parts in modern conditions is a natural process. Another thing is that it is necessary to fill the diversity of the control system by introducing computer and other progressive management technologies and mathematical methods, and not by attracting additional human resources.

The law of the required diversity * is of fundamental importance for the development of an optimal management system structure. If the central governing body, while maintaining reasonable dimensions, does not have the necessary diversity, then a hierarchical structure should be developed, transferring the adoption of certain decisions to lower levels and preventing them from turning into transfer instances. The unsatisfactory results of the country's economic reform are attributed to inadequate government response. The country is increasing the diversity of ownership forms, types of structural units of management objects, business models, etc. In accordance with these changes, it is necessary to bring the development management system into line with the law of the required diversity (provide preferential loans for structural changes, reasonable taxation of developing enterprises, state training policy and retraining, etc.).

From the standpoint of management theory, the main point characterizing the complexity of the system is its diversity. Therefore, determining the degree of optimal diversity in the development of any systems - organization of production, planning, maintenance, operational management, remuneration systems, etc. - is one of the most important and primary stages in the use of cybernetics in the design and operation of an organization.

This conclusion is well confirmed by popular wisdom: "Mind is good, but two is better," "One is not a warrior in the field." Disease of the human body is very often associated with the lack of necessary and sufficient diversity in the diet, mode of work and rest. Thus, compliance with the law of the necessary and sufficient diversity in the design and operation of organizational systems increases their efficiency and vice versa.

The principle of emergence. The second principle, U. E. Ashby, expresses the following important property of a complex system: " The larger the system and the greater the difference in size between the part and the whole, the higher the likelihood that the properties of the whole may differ greatly from the properties of the parts." These differences arise as a result of combining in the structure of the system (parts) a certain number of homogeneous or dissimilar parts (elements). This principle indicates the possibility of a mismatch between local goals (particular goals of individual elements of the system) and the global (common) goal of the system, and hence the need for making global results to make decisions and lead developments to improve the system and its parts based on not only analysis, but and synthesis. For example, when building a tree of goals, it is necessary to remember that the system will function more efficiently if the achievement of particular goals (for example, employees of a company) contributes to the achievement of a global (total) optimum of the system (of the company as a whole).

The emergence principle * is of great importance for the optimization of the management system. It defines the requirements of a systematic approach to solving management problems.

The principle of external addition. The third principle of cybernetics, first formulated by S. T. Bier, states that any control system needs a “black box” - certain reserves, with the help of which unaccounted effects of the external and internal environment are compensated. The degree of implementation of this principle determines the quality of functioning of the control subsystem. Indeed, in any, even the most detailed and carefully developed plan, it is impossible to take into account all the numerous factors affecting the managed subsystem in the process of its implementation. For example, this may manifest itself in the insufficient development of any planned indicators, in incomplete consideration in the planning and management of all factors of development of a production, in an insufficiently high level of information circulating in the system, etc.

Unaccounted factors can dramatically reduce the reliability of the systems. To keep the system at a given threshold values ​​of variables (indicators), it is necessary to give it a standard level of reserves (strategic, tactical, operational, technical, technological, organizational, economic and managerial), compensating for the impact of these factors. For example, when designing a site and group production lines, it is necessary to strive to load equipment at a level close to its standard value - 85%. Underloading of 15% is the reserve that makes it possible to compensate for unaccounted factors: poor design, imperfect technology, inadequate skills of workers, etc.

The law of feedback. The fourth principle of cybernetics is elevated to the rank of a fundamental law, which is known as the law of feedback. Without the presence of feedback between interrelated and interacting elements, parts or systems, it is impossible to organize their effective management on scientific principles. All organized systems are open, and their closure is provided only through the loop of direct and feedback. A prerequisite for their effective functioning is the presence of feedback signaling the result achieved. Based on this information, the control action is adjusted. In simplified form, this is shown in Fig. 1. 5. The input value r acts on the controlled process and, in accordance with the transfer function characteristic of the object and determining the ratio between the input and output signals, is converted into output value c.

Fig. 1. 5 Control circuit with feedback (simple closed loop system)

This value is fed to the input using the feedback channel, corrects the input value r and, as a control signal, m acts, but in a new way, on the object. The bond thus formed forms a closed loop.

There are two types of feedback: negative , which reduces the influence of the input value on the output value, that is, seeks to establish and maintain some stable dynamic equilibrium, and positive , increasing this effect and thereby creating unstable equilibrium. Similar regulatory processes occur in biological and socio-economic systems. Thus, the first important role of feedback is the restoration of normal operation disturbed by external and internal factors, i.e., the ability of systems to self-regulate and self-organize (adapt). The creation of self-adjusting and self-learning production control systems is one of the most promising applications of cybernetics.

Economic systems are under constant influence of natural and social factors. These external influences, as a rule, are random. At the same time, the complexity and variability of the system in time leads to the fact that the behavior of the system itself is to some extent uncertain, probabilistic. The influence of these numerous uncertainties leads to the fact that economic systems are always systems with incomplete information and are always managed in conditions of uncertainty. Therefore, the second important role of feedback is that, by informing the management body of information about the real state of the object, it allows regulation in the context of incomplete information about disturbing influences.

From a cybernetic point of view, feedback is an informational process. The impact of the input signal on the object, its processing into the output signal and the reverse action of the output through the feedback channel on the input value - all these are the processes of information transmission and processing.

The simplest example of the use of feedback in an enterprise is dispatching control: the arrival at the dispatcher’s desk of operational information on the production status for generating control commands is feedback in relation to a change in the control object, considered as the sum of information about it.

The feedback law * emphasizes that control is unthinkable without the presence of both direct and feedback between the object and the control subject, forming a closed loop. As applied to planning, this law approves the unity of the plan and the report. Whoever generates a plan, he organizes accounting, analysis and control of its execution by the control object.

The principle of decision making. The fifth principle of cybernetics is that a decision should be made based on the choice of one of several options. Where decision making * is based on the analysis of one option, there is subjective control. The development of multivariate reactions in response to a specific situation, the involvement of the collective mind for the development of solutions, including using the brainstorming method, will certainly ensure that an optimal decision is made for a particular case. This principle takes into account the interconnectedness and conditionality of quantitative and qualitative changes.

The principle of decomposition. This principle indicates that the managed object can always be considered as consisting of relatively independent from each other subsystems (parts). This provision, developed by W. E. Ashby and G. Klaus, is of considerable interest for the application of cybernetics to production. The fact is that the adjustment of the regulator to a complex object, taking into account all its aspects and variables, is theoretically and practically impossible, since it would never have been enough time for this. The dismemberment of the object into independent links and variables and the regulator itself into separate control blocks provides the ability to adapt to many conditions and consistently control them. For example, in practice, the enterprise dispatcher does not simultaneously consider all the perturbations that have arisen. He ranks them according to the degree of influence on the production process * and takes measures to eliminate them consistently. The art of management consists in the selection of interrelated factors, in the dismemberment of the problem being solved into a series of successive links.

Principles of hierarchy of control and automatic regulation. Hierarchy means multi-level management, which is characteristic of all organized systems. Usually, the lower tiers of control are characterized by a high reaction rate and fast processing of incoming signals. At this level, an operational decision is made * . For example, when a tool breaks down, a worker quickly disconnects the machine from the electrical grid.

The less diverse the signals, the faster the response - the response to the information. As the hierarchy increases, actions become slower, but they are more varied. They are no longer carried out at an impact rate, but may include analysis, comparison, development of various response options (response to information).

With regard to production, management at the master level of the site should be quick, but only provide answers to the simplest situations. Management * at the shop level should be already slower, since it already includes taking into account many factors and planning for a longer time. Hence the need to ensure maximum decentralization - self-regulation and self-organization of the system without connecting higher levels of management.

Все указанные законы и принципы кибернетики взаимосвязаны и взаимообусловлены. Они должны непременно учитываться при организации структуры как объекта, так и субъекта управления, а в равной мере при реализации временного аспекта их организации, т. е. при осуществлении процессов планирования и управления.

Рассмотренные принципы кибернетики последовательно связаны жесткой логикой и образуют замкнутый контур (рис. 1.7).