Swarm intelligence

Swarm intelligence

1. Social insects solve difficult problems through self organized teamwork with simple interactions

   • Flexibility – adapting to a changing environment
   • Robustness – group performs even if individuals fail
   • Self organization – activities are not centrally controlled or locally supervised
   • Ants find shortest paths by following pheromone trails

2. Applications

   • Hewlett Packard in routing phone calls leaving “digital pheromone”
   • Southwest Airlines in loading freight on cargo planes
   • Pina Petroli distributing heating oil to residents in Switzerland
   • Unilever in efficiency of factories, producing chemicals and storage tanks

3. Allocation of Labor

   • Honeybees specialize in tasks but will be flexible with allocating work if needed.
     • “Bucket brigade” – passing elements down a chain with only two fixed points
   • Applications
     • Order pickers at a large distribution center
     • Paint booths in a truck factory

4. Simple Rules

   • Complex collective behavior can emerge from individuals following simple rules
   • Lessons
     • Unpredictable or counterintuitive behavior may emerge from simple rules
     • A minor change in the rule can radically change group behavior
   • Applications
     • Capital One – align IT activities with the business, use good economic judgement, be flexible, have empathy

5. New markets

   • Mass recruitment - large
   • Tandem recruitment - smal
   • Group recruitment - medium
   • Applications
     • Enron – online energy trading