Institutional engineering based on structural calculation and its application in major engineering projects
"Sun's Map": Institutional engineering, quantitative decision-making, and optimization of environmental resources.
Type
Tags
Solution maturity
Mass promotion / Mass production
Applicable industry
Applications
Key innovations
The innovation of this product lies in the invention of an engineering system design method, especially the graphical symbols and rule system of the "Sun's Diagram".
Potential economic benefits
This green technology makes institutional design scientific through engineering methods. Its graphical, computable, and comparable characteristics can significantly optimize resource allocation, reduce management costs, and improve decision-making efficiency and project execution effectiveness.
Potential climate benefits
By optimizing the design of environmental policies and regulations (such as carbon taxes and subsidies), this method can more efficiently encourage low-carbon behavior and green technology applications, and promote resource conservation and greening of infrastructure. Its quantitative analysis capabilities help formulate more precise carbon reduction strategies and achieve overall carbon emissions reduction.
Solution supplier
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University of Shanghai for Science and Technology
Shanghai is a key university that cultivates outstanding engineering and technical talents to serve national strategies and regional development.
Shanghai，China
Solution details
- Problems in the field of institutional design addressed by this project
Architectural design has architectural drawings, circuit design has circuit diagrams, and mechanical design has mechanical drawings. With the help of these drawings, the design process is intuitive, objective, scientific and observable. On the contrary, system designs that are widely used do not have an institutional structure diagram expressed in concise symbols. They are mainly described in daily language. People rely solely on intuition and experience, making it difficult to observe multiple factors, and there is no mathematical calculation to evaluate the effects and costs of various institutional structures. It is difficult to compare and choose between. For the same problem, people propose a variety of governance solutions because people's suggestions mainly come from personal experience that varies from person to person. This is the state of the field of institutional design before this invention.
The engineering method of institutional design developed in this project enables institutional design to be like engineering design, with graphics, selection of institutional components, calculation and comparison of institutional effects, and optimization of design plans. Thus, the system design becomes operable and practical, and plays a role in scientific methods in management practice. - Effect of this study
The content of this invention is original by the project team (see attachment: Original New Evaluation Certificate of Shanghai Retrieval Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences). Research has been started in 1995, and it was not until 2013 that there were relatively complete results. It can be said to be a scientific long-distance race. This research has been continuously funded by 4 NSFC projects, two of which have been rated as excellent projects by the NSFC (the unit responsible for this project concludes about 45 NSFC projects every year, and only 1 project undertaken by the project leader was excellent, which was reported on the website of the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology).
Since 2008, the preliminary results of this project have gradually been used in management practice, with obvious results. In addition, certain results and achievements have been achieved: - After the results of this project team were published by Science Press, world publishing giant Springer published an English translation of the book for free after strict evaluation (see "Other Supporting Materials" in the attachment).
- The results of this project were evaluated as "international advanced level" by the Shanghai Document Retrieval Center of China Academy of Sciences.
3."Institutional Engineering" is the name for the results of this project. Currently, some universities have opened a new postgraduate course called "Institutional Engineering", and the impact of the results of this project is expanding. - Obtained 4 software copyrights
- The innovation in the method of this research-the invention of the drawing rules and symbol system for institutional design drawings
After countless failures, the graphical symbols and rule system for institutional design was finally successfully developed. Because the name was too long and inconvenient to express, and in order to commemorate the 20 years of hard exploration, this project named it "Sun's Picture". - Important discoveries obtained through this method-conclusion innovation points
- Basic discoveries: Through the analysis of "Sun's Map", it is found that there are only five basic project management institutional structures in human society, and most of the other specific systems are deformed or improved from these five basic institutional structures.
- Four specific findings:
(1) If major projects do not have any externalities, a spontaneously regulated market system should be adopted. At this time, the spontaneous equilibrium point of construction scale is optimal and no management costs are required.
(2) When major projects have positive externalities, the spontaneous equilibrium point of construction scale will be small. The subsidy system can expand the scale of construction. Projects with positive externalities include the construction of infrastructure such as reservoirs, roads and bridges.
(3) When the project has negative externalities, it will lead to a large spontaneous equilibrium point of the construction scale, thereby damaging resources and the environment. The tax system can reduce the scale of construction. It was found that the tax system also had a role in protecting the environment and resources. This reveals the mystery of the good environment in high-tax countries.
(4) It is found that the competition in the engineering construction market is the most intense when there are only two participants, rather than the more participants in textbooks, the more intense the competition. Therefore, allowing more companies to compete is the way to manage vicious competition, rather than reducing participants.
Last updated
12:21:03, Nov 04, 2025
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