Industrious, well-intentioned workers often improvise in situ solutions to workplace challenges foist on them by shortcomings of the systems in which they work. For example, resource shortages trigger workplace pressures that may stimulate front line coping mechanisms, often called workarounds. There has been surprisingly little attention to questions about why these resource shortages occur and even more insidiously why they persist despite the apparently clear adverse consequences. Motivated by field work at a manufacturing firm adopting lean manufacturing, this paper develops a system dynamics model to understand chronic resource shortages and calls attention to the nature of workarounds as both a solution to a front line problem and a mask of the underlying system weakness. The model illuminates how the actions of various groups (e.g., managers, production workers, and other shop floor workers) interact with each other and with the physical characteristics of the workplace to sustain problematic resource shortages.

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, made a presentation at the conference after the announcement. Upon invitation, the authors later wrote an updated paper summarizing their award-winning work, titled 'Integrated Simulation for the 2030 Agenda'. The paper immediately follows the citation below. The System Dynamics Applications Award is presented by the Society as often as once a year for the best 'real world' application of system dynamics, based primarily on demonstrated measurable benefit through the use of system dynamics. Instructions for making nominations are on the Society website. I would like to thank the other members of the committee: Jack Homer, Mark Paich, and especially Erik Zahn, who will be stepping down this year. Thank you also to those of you who made nominations. Keep those nominations coming.