October 24, 2005
Self-organising systems and swarm intelligence– are we that simple?
We are relatively new to the planet but have the biggest brains relative to our size. Is there more to learn from the animal world, and from insects in particular?
For years, scientists have tried to get us to see that there is a tremendous amount we can learn from the animal world. Many scientists have tirelessly campaigned in their efforts to show us that the behaviours of animals are very similar to our own. Most recently, scientists who have spent time researching insects, and in particular studying social insects such as ants, bees and wasps, have announced that their simple, everyday behaviours can help humans improve their businesses. Some scientists have gone further and have stated that if individuals follow simple rules, as their insect counterparts do, then the resulting behaviours can be surprisingly complex and remarkably efficient.
Researchers have developed the term ‘swarm intelligence’, which refers directly to the collective behaviour that emerges from a group of social insects. These social insects work without supervision, their teamwork is largely self-organised and their resulting coordination arises from the different interactions among individuals in the colony. Although these interactions remain relatively simple, taken together they can result in finding effective and efficient solutions to difficult problems.
Scientist Eric Bonabeau is a leader in the field of swarm intelligence and has focused much of his attention on applying the concept of swarm intelligence to real world business problems. Over the past twenty years Bonabeau and other researchers have developed complex mathematical models to describe and understand the behaviours of social insects and it is these techniques that are now being applied to different areas of businesses, all with very promising results. The research has helped several companies, including Capital One, Unilever and McGrawhill, to develop efficient ways to divide tasks among workers, organise people, plot different strategies, as well as helping to find more efficient ways to schedule factory equipment.
Flexibility, robustness and self-organisation
All social insects are said to possess three main characteristics: flexibility, robustness and self-organisation. These properties have been linked to the success of their group collective behaviour. The term flexibility refers to the way in which the colony is able to adapt to any changes in its environment, whilst robustness refers to situations in which one or more of the individuals in the collective group fails, yet the group is still able to perform its tasks. Self-organisation identifies activities that are neither centrally controlled nor locally supervised.
The main areas of scientific research have focused around insect foraging, which is not surprising, as the behaviours involved in foraging are most easily transferable in their application to business. More specifically, researchers have used this insect phenomenon to explain and understand the important concept of self-organisation in many areas of business.
A colony of ants is able to adopt its foraging efforts to the closest, most promising food source. Consider for a moment how it is that certain species of ants are able to find the closest food source. When an ant is successful in finding the shortest path to a food source, he returns to the nest, after having marked his trail with a chemical substance, or ‘smell’, known as ‘pheromones’. In turn these pheromones attract other ants to that specific path. Other ants from the colony will be attracted to this ‘smell’ and upon taking the same path will reinforce the trail by emitting their own pheromones, which further amplifies the ‘attractiveness’ of this shorter trail. Bonabeau suggests ‘that they were doing that collectively, self-organising [in order] to discover the best solution’.
Ant-foraging principles
Researchers from Hewlett-Packard in Bristol have developed a computer program based on these ant-foraging principles, which has enabled them to route calls efficiently. To illustrate, program researchers have developed what can be described as hordes of software agents or ‘ants’ that roam through the telecom network and leave bits of information, which can be thought of as ‘digital pheromones’ to reinforce paths through uncongested areas in the network. Phone calls then follow the trails left by these ‘ants’. Researchers have added a mechanism that continually ‘evaporates’ the digital pheromones, enabling the program to adjust quickly to any changes that may occur in traffic conditions.
The benefits of this method of routing have been identified as invaluable. For example, when phone calls are routed through the better parts of a network, this ant-based routing process not only allows the calls to get through quickly but also enables the congested areas to recover from any overload.
This ant-based system also has the inherent advantages of swarm intelligence systems: flexibility, robustness and self-organisation. The success of this program has now led to other companies following suit, British Telecom and its French counterpart France Telecom as well as MCI WorldCom have all taken an early lead in designing such ant-based routing methods that should enable them to be more efficient.
Researchers have noted that the ultimate application of this unique routing method may be on the Internet, where traffic can be very unpredictable. In fact, there are various uses for the ant-foraging model that have helped make businesses more efficient. Early results of these methods and their real-world applications have indicated promise for the future and because their self-organisation is based purely on local decisions, there is great potential.
The ‘bucket brigade’
Foraging is not the only social-insect behaviour that is being applied to businesses. The way that insects allocate labour also offers businesses valuable insights. The model of work allocation which comes from seed-harvester ants carrying food back to their nest, known as the ‘bucket brigade’, has been shown to dramatically increase the efficiency of operations in which work is passed from one person to another. Swarm intelligence may also hold important lessons for businesses seeking to find and exploit new markets.
Swarm intelligence is becoming a valuable tool for optimising the operations of various businesses. It questions the wisdom of certain assumptions regarding the need for employee supervision through command and control management. In the future, researchers hope that some companies might build their entire businesses from scratch using the principles of swarm intelligence.
Such research is still in its early stages, but Bonabeau argues that ‘the possible applications of swarm intelligence may be limited only by the imagination’. Researchers are also aware that many people have great difficulty understanding exactly how swarm intelligence can work for them. Bonabeau puts this wariness down to people being unfamiliar with self-organising systems, as well as the group behaviour that appears from collective interactions of individuals which can tend to be a frightening concept for those who may be unaccustomed to it. Having said that, several Internet companies are already using the principle rules of self-organisation as a foundation for their businesses.
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