Reflection 2 — Systems and Design Innovation
This week we were introduced to system thinking and a little bit about design research. I would like to specifically mention the Thinking in Systems reading and talk a bit more in-depth about the How Samsung Became a Design Powerhouse article (as hinted by the image above).
One thing I learned about myself this week, is that I am very interested in design as a topic as despite having to read about 80 pages, I read it in one sitting. For those who don’t know me, this is rare for topic specific readings and doesn’t happen unless I find it engaging and interesting for myself. The chapters did a great job explaining system thinking and showing how everything can either be an example of a system or is possibly part of one. Examples were given from a wide variety of areas from economics to technology and daily life. They broke down the essence of systems, explaining each part from their interactions to importance. After that, many real life examples were brought up to illustrate the concepts discussed.
The knowledge read and absorbed through the readings on their own were interesting, but when combined with other readings, that is when I saw sparks of interest fly and my brain really started actively engaging with what my eyes were seeing. The Samsung reading was a great example of system thinking and how changing a system might play out. The article does a great job outlining the major changes and steps Samsung took to become a major powerhouse, even though it skims past the specifics.
In a way it outlines the design process and challenges designers faced, specifically the steps they took to guarantee that the design they send of remains as unchanged as possible upon product launch. Essentially they adopted a process where the viewpoint and priorities of other parties in the Samsung system were incorporated into the design decision making. I recommend reading the article for some example brought up. It highlights that when people can see the product and how it has to go through a system, there is room for more collaboration. Each part of the system, whether its a designer or engineer or someone else can see that the product will interact with other parts, potentially sparkling the thought of “how will that team or person think about this?” Considering things from a different viewpoint might require the need to communicate with others who can have different views and suggestions, fostering collaboration.
This is the end of the reflection below is a short interesting story connected to the readings, but as I am over the 250 word recommended limit, please feel free to stop reading here.
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I would like to bring up another example of Samsung’s success I learned about in one of my computer science classes, which is their success with computer chip making. In the past, Intel was the leading chip maker who came up with a very efficient design and every year their goal was to double the chip’s performance. It was so effective their design was the go to chip for all products. The issue came up later when they realized the design is so optimized its no longer possible to increase it efficiency. Samsung’s change of focus on improving design allowed it to create alternative chips that ultimately outperformed Intel and other competitors and by the late 2000s became the top small chip manufacturer. A position they still hold today. I think the difference between Intel and Samsung was that Samsung started thinking about its position or role in the system, even thinking what system do we want to be part of? That helped expand and define their purpose, rather than Intel who solely focused on improving on product, shortening the deadlines each time. That left no room for further pondering, leaving them stuck when they could no longer optimize their one chip design. This highlights how system thinking can help with organizations, addressing internal efficiency and really help define not just company growth (if that is the business model or goal ), but also how they can go about it in the way they want.
The same split happened with Apple a couple years ago where they realized the current standard Intel computer chips models in the market wasn’t what they wanted for the future designs and goals of the Macbook. This resulted in the creation of the M1 and M2 chips they now use for Apple products.
