About the Project
Systems thinking is a way of helping a person to view systems from a broad perspective that includes seeing overall structures, patterns and cycles in systems, rather than seeing only specific events in the system. This broad view can help you to quickly identify the real causes of issues in organizations and know just where to work to address them. Systems thinking has produced a variety of principles and tools for analyzing and changing systems.
This course lets us apply the principles of systems thinking to study the system of Guntur railway station and map opportunities accordingly.
Timeline: 2 weeks
Project type: Classroom project
Tool: Observation, Brain dumping, Personal Interviews, Information analysis, Information synthesis, Actors' Mapping, Opportunity Mapping, Ideation/Sketching
Team: Vaibhav Doi, Midhun S Krishna, Sanghpriya Siddharth Rahi
Area of Study
The area of study for this classroom project was the Guntur Railway Station.
Guntur railway station (station code: GNT) is an Indian railway station in Guntur of Andhra Pradesh. It is situated on Krishna Canal-Guntur section of Guntur railway division in South Central Railway zone. It is the 295th busiest railway station in India.
The Identified Subsystem
The subsystem we had to map as a group was IRCTC's Food and Water, The initial stage was to identify Major nodes in the subsystem of food and water which in turn be the 'sub - subsystems' within the subsystem of food and water.
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Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is a subsidiary of the Indian Railways that handles the catering, tourism and online ticketing operations of the Indian railways, with around 5,50,000 to 6,00,000 bookings every day is the world's second busiest. Its tagline is "Lifeline of the nation".
Actors' Mapping
Actors' map is intended to identify opportunities to improve a system's overall performance. For example, this could be done by observing where connections are weak or where gaps could be filled.
Creating a comprehensive actor map requires both explicit data from evaluations and studies, and implicit knowledge from the participants. Making sure you have the right actors at the table, as well as a variety of supporting data, will lead to a more useful map.
NOTE!
Actors aren’t only employees or workers, a family member can also be an actor.
Opportunity Mapping
Opportunity mapping is a research tool used to understand the dynamics of “opportunity” within the identified areas. The purpose of opportunity mapping is to illustrate where opportunity-rich areas exist and to understand what needs to be remedied and to be intervened into.
Identified opportunities
1. How might we make the IRCTC feedback system more efficient in order to have food service better?
2. How might we improve IRCTC 's brand image in the eye's of passengers?
3. How might we bring more variety to IRCTC' s Food Menu/ services?
4. How might we meet fresh food requirements of a passenger at odd timings?
5. How might we make IRCTC food more appetizing?
Proposed Interventions
Janthela
Janthela is a revamped food serving cart with hot and cold storage to serve food to the passengers in trains in a short span of time as the vendor can reach the train doors and deliver the food items. Also, this cart can deliver food to passengers at odd times at night.
Revamping IRCTC's Feedback system
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Janaahar
Janahaar(IRCTC restaurants) will be set up in and around the country to help IRCTC's catering service build their Brand Image in the eyes of passengers by providing better food services without railways' constraints. These restaurants will also let IRCTC experiment with their food menu and know passenger's likes and dislikes.
