Smart decisions in complex systems

363 Pages·2017·7.846 MB·English

by  Corsi, Patrick, Massotte, Pierre

Smart Decisions in Complex Systems
Smart Decisions in
Complex Systems

Pierre Massotte
Patrick Corsi
First published 2017 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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© ISTE Ltd 2017
The rights of Pierre Massotte and Patrick Corsi to be identified as the authors of this work have been
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017938651

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ISBN 978-1-78630-110-9
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
List of Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv
Part 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 1. The Foundations of Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Complexities and simplexities: paradigms and perspectives . . . . . . . 3
1.1.1. Positioning the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.2. Reminders, basics and neologisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1.3. What are the analytical steps in a complex system? . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.1.4. Organization and management principles
in complex systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
1.1.5. Action and decision processes in self-organized systems . . . . . . 35
1.1.6. Notions of centralization and decentralization . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
1.2. What is the prerequisite for the handling
of a complex system? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
1.3. Applications: industrial complex systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
1.3.1. Distributed workshop management system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
1.3.2. Analysis and diagnosis of a complex system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
1.3.3. Some recommendations and comments to conclude . . . . . . . . . 48
1.4. Time to conclude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
1.4.1. Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
1.4.2. Lessons and perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
vi Smart Decisions in Complex Systems
Part 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Chapter 2. Evidencing Field Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.2. Qualitative study of deterministic chaos in a dynamic
simple system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.2.1. Description of a few simple cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.2.2. Initial conditions related to the emergence of chaos . . . . . . . . . 59
2.2.3. Modeling and mathematical analysis of chaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
2.2.4. Application at the level of a simple cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.3. Test for the presence of deterministic chaos
in a simple dynamic system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
2.3.1. Characterization of the systems studied . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
2.3.2. A general question: is there deterministic chaos? . . . . . . . . . . . 70
2.4. Properties of chaos in complex systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.4.1. Study of an elementary cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.4.2. Complex cellular systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
2.5. Effects of fractal chaos in “Complexity” theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
2.5.1. Organized complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
2.5.2. Innovative complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.5.3. Random complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
2.5.4. Principles of implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
2.6. Self-organization: relations and the role of chaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
2.6.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
2.6.2. How to combine self-organization and chaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
2.6.3. Critical self-organized systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
2.6.4. Networked systems and co-operative systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
2.6.5. The three states of a dynamic complex system . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
2.6.6. Towards a typology of behavioral complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
2.7. Applications: introduction of new concepts in systems . . . . . . . . . . 95
2.7.1. Questions on the management of complex
industrial systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
2.7.2. Implementation of the concepts of chaos and
self-organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
2.8. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Chapter 3. The New “Complex” Operational Context . . . . . . . . . 101
3.1. The five phases of economy – how everything
accelerates at the same time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
3.2. The expected impact on just about everything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Contents vii
Chapter 4. Taking Up Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.1. Taking into account complex models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.1.1. A brief overview of the approach called “complexity” . . . . . . . . 109
4.1.2. Another (bio-inspired) vision of the world: universality . . . . . . . 112
4.1.3. How to address complexity in this universal world? . . . . . . . . . 115
4.1.4. The usefulness of this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
4.2. Economy and management of risks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.2.1. Important challenges to raise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.2.2. Adapted vocabulary that it is useful to adopt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
4.2.3. What do we mean by dynamic pricing? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Part 3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Chapter 5. Tackling Complexity with a Methodology . . . . . . . . . . 123
5.1. Any methodology must first enrich the systemic
interrelationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
5.1.1. The innovation economy: the dynamic management
of innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
5.1.2. A basic mechanism of efficient innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.1.3. The benefits of such a shift mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.2. Towards a transdisciplinary co-economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Chapter 6. Management and Control of Complex Systems . . . . . 129
6.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
6.2. Complex systems: the alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
6.2.1. Notions of sociability in agent communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
6.2.2. The evolutionary principles of complex systems . . . . . . . . . . . 134
6.3. Control principles of production systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.3.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.3.2. Control: by scheduling or by configuration? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
6.3.3. The tools used in monitoring and control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
6.4. PABADIS: an example of decentralized control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
6.4.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
6.4.2. Context and objectives of the PABADIS project . . . . . . . . . . . 142
6.4.3. Conceptual overview of PABADIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
6.4.4. Principle of adopted convergence: the inverse solution . . . . . . . 144
6.4.5. Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
6.5. Generalization of the concepts and mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
6.5.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
6.5.2. Allocation of resources: the agents in complex
production systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
6.5.3. Allocation of resources: the negotiation protocols . . . . . . . . . . 147
viii Smart Decisions in Complex Systems
6.5.4. Optimization of the resource allocation process . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
6.6. A basic mechanism of control – the auction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
6.6.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
6.6.2. The mechanism of the auction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
6.6.3. Comparative review of the types of auctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
6.6.4. Findings on the interest of the auction mechanism . . . . . . . . . . 155
6.7. The control of self-organized systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
6.7.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
6.7.2. The types and mechanisms of self-organization . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
6.7.3. Towards a dynamic integrated model:
Cellular Automata (CA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
6.7.4. Self-organization: forms and configurations obtained . . . . . . . . 165
6.7.5. Conclusion and implementation of the ACCA
concept, a major model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Chapter 7. Platforms for Taking up Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
7.1. The VFDCS: a platform for implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
7.1.1. Controlling the phenomena of self-organization . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
7.1.2. Methodology for implementation and the
validation of concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
7.2. The application of VFDCS: the auction market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
7.2.1. The concept of the “Container” in the auction market . . . . . . . . 176
7.2.2. Feedbacks and results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
7.2.3. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
7.3. The application of VFDCS: the virtual supply chain . . . . . . . . . . . 179
7.3.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
7.3.2. Architecture of the virtual supply chain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
7.3.3. Results and comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
7.3.4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
7.3.5. Enhancement of the multi-agent platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
7.4. General method for the control of systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
7.4.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
7.4.2. Reminders and definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
7.4.3. Analytical approach to consistency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
7.4.4. Methods for the analysis and monitoring
of performances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
7.4.5. Critical analysis of the convergence of configurations . . . . . . . . 192
7.5. Conclusions and prospects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
7.5.1. Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
7.5.2. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
7.5.3. Comparison of approaches, tools and applications . . . . . . . . . . 197
7.5.4. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Contents ix
Part 4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Introduction to Part 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Chapter 8. Applying Intrinsic Complexity:
The Uberization of the Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
8.1. Preamble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
8.2. The context: new opportunities and new
consumption needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
8.3. The domains that are studied in this chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
8.4. Concepts, definitions and remainders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
8.4.1. Uberization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
8.4.2. Digitalization of the economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
8.4.3. Collaborative consumption (CC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
8.4.4. Model generalization: the sharing economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
8.4.5. Participatory financing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
8.5. The business model and key elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
8.5.1. Practicing networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
8.5.2. Positive and negative impacts of network
applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
8.5.3. The problem of producer–consumers and
consumer–producers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
8.5.4. Underlying mechanisms: some differences with
the usual economic systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
8.5.5. A form of social hypocrisy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
8.5.6. Generalization: the management rules for P2P . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
8.6. The problem of property and resource allocation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
8.6.1. The growing role of platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
8.6.2. The prisoner’s dilemma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
8.6.3. Games theory: an introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
8.6.4. Nonlinear models in game theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
8.7. The uberization approach in context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
8.7.1. Simplexification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
8.7.2. Increasing complexity: the influence of
cognitive approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
8.8. Generalization: the complexity of allocation problems . . . . . . . . . . 230
8.9. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Chapter 9. Computer-assisted Production Management . . . . . . . 235
9.1. Introduction and reminders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
9.2. Intercommunication networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
9.2.1. Notions of complexity in networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
x Smart Decisions in Complex Systems
9.2.2. A few concepts of parallelism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
9.2.3. Elements of parallelism and associated architectures . . . . . . . . . 237
9.2.4. Transposition into industrial or social applications . . . . . . . . . . 239
9.3. Communication network topologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
9.3.1. Some characteristics of different network topologies . . . . . . . . . 241
9.3.2. Construction of a hypercube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
9.3.3. Notions of symmetry: cutting a hypercube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
9.3.4. The shortest path between two processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
9.4. A few important properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
9.5. Analysis of new concepts and methods in manufacturing
sciences: instabilities, responsiveness and flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
9.5.1. General approach: planning and scheduling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
9.5.2. Illustration in management systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
9.5.3. Problems and remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
9.5.4. Improvements in planning and scheduling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
9.5.5. Improvements in configuration/reconfiguration . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
9.5.6. Global improvements through simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
9.5.7. Inverse modeling and simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
9.6. New concepts for managing complex systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
9.6.1. Traditional approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
9.6.2. Recent improvements in the management of systems . . . . . . . . 260
9.7. The change of conduct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
9.8. Improvements in manufacturing: process balancing . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
9.9. Conclusion: main action principles in complex
environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Chapter 10. Complexity and Cognitive Robotics . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
10.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
10.2. The new industrial revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
10.3. The factory of the future: trend or revolution? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
10.4. Inputs for the factory of the future and their impact
on the industry’s professions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
10.5. Conditions for success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
10.6. The data sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
10.6.1. Introduction to the characteristics of “Big Data” . . . . . . . . . . . 277
10.6.2. The problem of Big Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
10.6.3. A new profession: the data scientist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
10.6.4. Some ask, how will this be possible? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
10.6.5. The field of large numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Contents xi
10.7. A few technologies in data sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
10.7.1. The steps of reasoning based on the experience of the
inductive approach and on the verification of hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . 281
10.7.2. The “Lasso” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
10.7.3. Kernel regression methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
10.7.4. The random forests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
10.7.5. Neural networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
10.7.6. Comments on clustering and graph partitioning
issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
10.7.7. Cognitive informatics – cognitivism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
10.8. Mechanisms of conventional cognitive engineering . . . . . . . . . . . 288
10.9. The new mechanisms of engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
10.9.1. Transduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
10.9.2. Reasoning by constructed analogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
10.10. The study of links and relationships in large databases . . . . . . . . 290
10.10.1. Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
10.11. Application of cognitive robotics: the Watson platform . . . . . . . . 291
10.11.1. Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
10.12. The impossibilities and unpredictabilities of complexity . . . . . . . 293
10.13. Current strategies of digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
10.13.1. Reference examples and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
10.13.2. GNOSIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
10.13.3. “Data is Centric” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
10.14. Conclusion: a maximum risk economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327