The Magic Ring

This book presents a new understanding on how control systems truly operate, and explains how to recognize, simulate, and improve control systems in all fields of activity. It also reveals the fundamental and indispensable role of control processes and the need to develop a control-oriented thinking is based on uncomplicated but effective models derived from systems thinking - the true discipline of control. Over the book's thirteen chapters, Piero Mella shows that there are simple control systems (rather than complex ones) that can easily help us to manage complexity without drawing upon more sophisticated control systems.

It begins by reviewing the basic language of systems thinking and the models it allows users to create. It then introduces the control process, presenting the theoretical structure of three simple control systems we all can observe in order to gain fundamental knowledge from them about the basic structure of a control system. The next chapter presents the anatomy of the simplest "magic ring" and the general theoretical model of this system. This is followed by an introduction to a general typology of control systems and a broader view of control systems by establishing multi-lever control systems and multi-objective systems.