James Blum, the President of Williams Construction, is concerned that his company's control system is not adequate to cope with the complexity of its operations. Mr. Blum knows that, to maintain adequate control in his company, he must either increase the amount of variety in his control system or
A) reduce the amount of variety in the system being controlled.
B) desensitize the measuring device.
C) decrease the number of feedback reports.
D) increase the number of control systems already in place.
E) anticipate fewer problems.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

According to Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety, to manage a system effectively, the variety in the control system must be equal to or greater than the variety in the system being controlled. Therefore, if increasing the variety in the control system is not feasible, reducing the variety in the system being controlled is a viable strategy to maintain adequate control.

James Blum, the President of Williams Construction, Is Concerned That