Information System and Systems Thinking: A Compulsory Marriage?

Information systems play a fundamental role in enterprise management and development. Moving from MRP to ERP and from CAD to PLM, the amount of information stored in the enterprises’ computers increased exponentially. Nowadays enterprises face a double-faced risk: on one side they have increasing difficulties in the management of large amount of information and sometimes they lose the access to important data; on the other side the availability of large amount of information allows for unconstrained modification of product development process and sometimes it promotes solutions which do not preserve the enterprises’ core competences. Both problems could be solved by experts trained to manage complex data in complex systems. The evolution of information systems from MRP to ERP and from CAD to PLM may require a new approach based on a holistic view or, in engineering words, on system thinking. The paper deals with such hypothesis: the adoption of system thinking approach in product development process and the skills required to people involved in the process.