The CSCS Academic Business Consortium (ABC) Meeting

Meeting at the Ford Research Laboratory

The Center for the Study of Complex Systems is pleased to invite interested U-M faculty and students to its February Academic Business Consortium (ABC) meeting. Ford Motor Company's Ph.D. research group will offer talks and posters describing the interfaces between complex systems research and industry (see abstracts below). The event will be held at the Ford Research Laboratory, hosted by Ford Motor Company. The hosts, and presenters, are members of Ford's research group -- which employs many PhDs. Newcomers to complex systems are encouraged to attend.

RSVP by 2/2/01 for the Ford ABC meeting by e-mail to lcoleman@umich.edu. Specify whether you will be participating in 1) the Lab Tour, 2) the Dinner or 3) Both.

Please also mention if you need transportation or directions to the Ford Research Laboratory. If you are willing to drive and take other folks (i.e. carpool), let us know.

Academic Business Consortium [ABC] Meeting
Ford Research Laboratory
Dearborn, MI
Feb 8, 2001

4:00    Lab Tour

5:00    Presentations

"Industry as a Natural Laboratory for Complex Systems Research"
Ken Hass, Physics and Chemistry & Environmental Science Departments

"Is There a Need for Practitioners of Complexity Science?"
Irv Salmeen, e-Technology Department

6:00    Pizza dinner (Ford Research Laboratory Atrium)

6:00    Poster presentations by Ford Research Laboratory researchers 
        (Ford Research Laboratory Atrium)

Topics:   
   Agent based methods for complex consumer-choice problems
   Dynamical behavior of pricebots in automated markets
   Inferences about consumer choices from empirical transactional data
   Economic constraints in supply-chain logistics
   Genetic algorithms for assembly-line sequencing problems

• "Industry as a Natural Laboratory for Complex Systems Research"

  Ken Hass
  Physics and Chemistry & Environmental Science Departments

  Beyond all the hype about the relationship between complexity and business, there is indeed a natural affinity between these two subjects that has only recently begun to be exploited by academic and industrial researchers. The speaker will share some general perspectives on this relationship based on his involvement with UM's Center for the Study of Complex Systems during a recent sabbatical leave from Ford. Whereas Henry Ford's assembly line represented the culmination of a linear, reductionist, command-and-control approach to manufacturing, labor, and wealth generation, all industries today must also incorporate and cope with nonlinear, emergent, and co-evolutionary phenomena and processes. Examples range from global environmental problems to supply-chain, engineering, and manufacturing strategies to consumer behavior and organizational effectiveness. The mutual benefits to industry and academia of working together to bridge the gaps between fundamental developments and practical applications of complex systems research will be emphasized. (Gzipped Postscript; Powerpoint file)

  
  

• "Is There a Need for Practitioners of Complexity Science?"

  Irv Salmeen
  Ford Research Laboratory e-Technology Department

  The question in the title above is different from: "Is complexity science practical or relevant?" Clearly, there is huge body of practical questions used to illustrate and motivate the central ideas in the Science of Complexity. But the archetypical business community wants THE answer to THE problem. This is nothing new: engineering theory and practice communities have been at loggerheads for 200 years. The Operations Research community faced much the same dichotomy. Despite its early successes with WW II logistics problems, OR slipped into obscurity during the 1970s after the simple problems had been solved and the complicated ones could not be. That changed in the 1980s and 90s when computing power reached the stage where "real" problems could be solved. This combined with the demand for competitive advantage breathed new life into the OR profession. In principle, however, the OR profession has focused on THE answer to THE problem. In contrast, the Science of Complexity brings a different point of view to the problems in its domain: there is no "THE problem with THE answer", and the way to think about the problems is very different from the entrenched reductionist view. So how do the conclusions of Complexity Science become embodied in practice? This talk will illustrate some of these issues with research now on-going in the e-Technology Department, in the Ford Research Laboratory. These problems include, behavior of automated markets, inferences about consumer choices from empirical transactional data, economic constraints in supply-chain logistics, assembly-line sequencing problems, and the properties of multi-channel information systems. A job description for a Practitioner of Complexity Science begins to emerge. (Gzipped Postscript; Powerpoint file)