Bridging the gap: the workforce-patient dynamics: Understanding system behaviour of the social-organisational mental health care system to increase health care sustainability: a focus study on alcohol use disorders in the Netherlands

Substance use disorders, particularly alcohol use disorder (AUD), are a major global health challenge, significantly impacting morbidity and mortality rates. In the Netherlands, around 20% of the population is affected by excessive alcohol consumption, with a notable treatment gap and disproportionate effects on the elderly. Despite increased...

Guiding food safety authorities in inspection strategy design: A systems approach to food safety regulation

The Nederlandse- Voedsel en Warenautoriteit (NVWA) asked the at-first-sight simple question of how to combine risk-based and random methods for inspection. Risk-based and random inspection methods have contrasting incentives. Risk-based inspection increases efficiency and allocates resources efficiently but fails to regulate low and emergent...

Beyond conscious and premium: A strategy to unite sustainability communication of low-cost brands and retailers in the denim industry

The production of denim harms the environment, and given the industry’s size, the negative impact is significant. Therefore, denim must be produced more sustainably. In order to bring about change in the industry, an increase in demand for eco-friendly jeans is necessary to incentivise investments in sustainable production methods. Here, low...

A systems-thinking approach to explore the causes underlying the decision-making of premature demolition

This study aims to provide insight into the causes underlying premature building demolition to improve the understanding of demolition decisions that might help reduce the number of demolitions in the construction sector.<br/>This study adopted a System Thinking based Approach and a case study. The methods explored a Dutch university building...

Enabling a Coal Transition in South Kalimantan, Indonesia: An Exploratory Case Study Research with a Political Economy Analysis & Development of Institutional Interventions

According to the UNFCCC, the generation of electricity from coal fired power production (CFPP) is regarded as the greatest cause of climate change. Phasing-out CFPP and accelerating the deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) is, therefore, a crucial part of energy transitions for mitigating climate change. The Indonesian government has...

Ecology in Urban Development: The potential of systems thinking to make ecology a more prominent concept in urban development

Changes to ecosystems due to human activity have occurred more quickly in the previous 65 years than at any other period in history, this has resulted in an irreversible loss in biodiversity worldwide. A direct consequence is a decrease in ecosystem services - the benefits for humans that are provided by ecology - which are needed to keep...

Analysis and Simulation of a Break Bulk Terminal in the steel industry

Break bulk terminal operators are constantly in search for improving the performance of their operations. The logistical processes associated with these operations are complex and identifying where improvements have the largest impact on performance therefore is as well. In this paper a combination of system thinking and discrete-event...

A Systems Thinking approach towards Reuse: Digital Platform Ecosystem facilitating building design with recoverable elements

Although the construction industry has made considerable progress in reducing the environmental impacts by waste diversion, the consumption rate of natural resources for construction material is still on the higher side. Hence, there needs to be a higher emphasis on reusing old building components in new construction without down-cycling them...

Modelling participatory modelling

To deal with increasing complexity and connectivity of socio-technical systems it becomes unlikely for individuals to be able to oversee all possible changes. These systems are riddled with a plurality of actors with differing interests, disciplines, institutions and ecological limitations. Examples of systems like these are energy and gas grids...

Circular Collaborations in Urban space: A tool-kit for scaling through engagement

A circular economy is a means to an end of achieving a sustainable world, a lot of traction has been gained in the recent years into the concept of a circular economy and many new products and business models have been created around the concept. But most of the exploration of the concept lies in the possibilities of new product and market...

Power Literacy: Towards a Socially Just, Decolonial and Democratic Design Process

This report outlines the design process, research activities and results of a graduation thesis on power and privilege in multi-stakeholder public and social sector design processes. Due to a perceived gap in the design field, both in education and practice, the aim of this project is to support designers in becoming more aware of power dynamics...

Subversive machines: Designing architectural freedom through open systems

This project forms an exploration of the way in which architecture, as a discipline, might come to a distinctly architectural application of computational design techinques. In particular, it questions the external nature of these techniques to the field, and how the discipline might come to formulate its own critical technicity. This is...

Disinformation in the European Union: Using systems thinking to assess the impact of current policies to reduce the spread and production of disinformation

Disinformation is a problem that has become more relevant over the past years. Also the European Union tried and is trying to deal with this problem by introducing multiple policy actions. However, the impact and usefulness of these policies is not clear. This thesis uses a combination of stakeholder analysis, interviews and systems thinking to...

Design Space for Heat Network Systems: Learning from the Electricity, Gas, Water and Wastewater Network Systems

As a move away from the natural gas based heating, the Dutch government identified district heating networks as most economical alternative to the natural gas. However, the future plans for the district heating sector have faced challenge on the question of the design of heat market and management of factors such as ownership, network access,...

Towards more effective residential retrofit interventions: Exploring an alternative monitoring approach to drive the effectiveness of residential energy efficiency retrofit interventions

Humanity is facing large scale environmental challenges emerging from the anthropogenic climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) are widely considered to be the main driver of the changing climate. With the built environment currently being accountable for about 40% for our total GHG emissions there is a great urgency to act and change our...

Change of owner, change of plans: A Method to compare different ownership models of a system, applied to a steam case.

Large investments in renewable energy lead to new possibilities for industries. Such technologically and economically sound projects can be limited by non-optimal ownership settings. The Risk Ownership Assessment(ROA) is developed to integrate the ownership aspect with the technical system. ROA compares different ownership configurations with...

Innovation of the acute care system: Introducing the human factor to improve quality - analysis of a complex multi-actor system

There are several signs that the acute care system in the Netherlands might not function optimal. This research focuses on ways to innovate, and thereby to improve the quality of the care delivered. The acute care system is complex. It is a large, safety-critical system in which people have to act fast and correct. Apart from qualitative, non...