Everything is broken

  Another way of saying that everything is broken is by saying that nothing is perfect. The next several blogs are going to describe how entropy can be used as one of the most efficient ways of increasing performance in the service organization. The following list of quotes has been extracted from several articles that support this focus on entropy.

1  1. Entropy is a measure of disorder. It’s a physical law of nature that left untouched, everything will steadily deteriorate.  Taken from head scratchers.com/January 2013 post

    2.  Managing entropy in business: a demon that slowly erodes, disrupts, and destroys organizations. Taken from bizshifts.com/July 2016

    3. Entropy can show you where additional resources would make your business more efficient.  Taken from yourbusiness.azcentral.com.  No date identified.

    4. Entropy occurs in every aspect of the business. Taken from FS.blog/2018

    5. Understanding the law of nature about entropy can help prevent business deterioration. Entropy is the potential energy that is not available for work. Taken from slideshare.net/June 2013

    6. Entropy is a quantifiable value analogous to the amount of randomness in the system. Taken from fastCompany.com.  no date identified

    7. Entropy is the tendency of ordered systems to move towards disorder if left unattended. All organized systems are like this. You have to continually work to maintain them or they’ll fall into disarray. Taken from nfx.com/post/entropy. No date identified

    8. Entropy is the tendency of ordered systems to move towards disorder if left unattended.  Taken from nfx.com/entropy

    9. We find that the tendency of operational routines to decay is widespread. Taken from pubsonline.informs.org. No date identified.

As you can see in these comments taken from various articles entropy is a measure of disorder or reduction in productivity.  The purpose of this blog and following blogs is to identify the various components of entropy that can be found within the service organization. As we identify each component of entropy, the metrics needed for that component of entropy will likewise be identified.

Finally, we will create a model to combine the various components of entropy to provide management with sufficient information to reduce the disorder in the appropriate areas of the business.

Some of the components of entropy that have been identified are:

     1. Cultural entropy – measure dysfunction     

     2. Economic entropy – measure waste of capital, human resources, and materials

     3. Process entropy – measure scale entropy, capability entropy, and speed entropy.

The bottom line is that while many authors have addressed the various aspects of entropy in service, there is no integrated perspective that I have found in the literature.  Until we identify the components of entropy, we cannot develop processes that will minimize possible degradation and increase entropy.