From the cell, to the organ, to the organ system, to the body, to the society, all systems have these 19 things (according to James Miller’s “Living Systems”):
- Reproducer - making similar-to-itself bits
- Boundary - holds components together and protects from the outside
- Ingestor - bringing in matter/energy across the boundary
- Distributor - moves energy/material around within the system
- Converter - changes inputs of one form into another
- Producer - makes stuff
- Matter-energy storage
- Extruder - outputs products/waste from the system
- Motor - move the system, or parts within it
- Supporter - maintaining spatial relationships between system components
- Input transducer - receives signals from outside the system & converts them for use
- Internal transducer - converts signals from inside the system
- Channel and Net - the transducer’s communications network infrastructure
- Decoder - interprets signals
- Associator - carries out the 1st stage of learning, associating things.
- Memory - carries out the 2nd stage of learning, storing associations
- Decider - receives lots of inputs, generates main system control signals
- Encoder - for preparing signals outside the system
- Output transducer - for actually sending signals out from the system
All of these “living” system features can also be applied to a business, when viewed as a system.