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Complexity remains a difficult concept to sell regardless of the glitzy coverage it receives in the press. Its jargon and counterintuitive results are difficult to encapsulate into the 30 second span of an elevator conversation. Its metaphors often lose their visceral appeal under the scrutiny of accountants tasked with making the forecasted earnings goal. Executives do understand their business in terms of real concepts such as problems, solutions, and accounting exhibits. Demonstrate an understanding of their problem, propose a likely solution, and make the business case in terms of accounting exhibits and the task of selling of complexity becomes a minor issue. I will discuss industrial applications of complexity in forecasting, scheduling, and marketing from this perspective.
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Bill acts as a change agent responsible for matching technology applications with strategic business at Deere & Company. He has applied adaptive computing, statistical design and analysis, and discrete event simulation needs across the enterprise. Among his recent interests and accomplishments, Bill has: (i) investigated the organizational implications of the New Economy; (ii) championed adoption of the OptiFlex System for factory assembly line sequencing and order management; and (iii) established collaborative development of the Swarm multi-agent simulation with the Santa Fe Institute. You may read about Bill's work with genetic algorithm based scheduling in Blur: The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy (Davis & Meyer, 1998) and The Technology Machine: How Manufacturing Will Work in the Year 2020 (Moody & Morley, 1999). Prior to joining Technology Integration, Bill had a variety of assignments at Deere & Company in other departments including the Technical Center, Production Engineering, Materials, and Parts Distribution. He has also served as a military operations research analyst for the Gen. Thomas J. Rodman Laboratory at Rock Island, IL, as well as Computer Sciences Corporation and Booz-Allen Applied Research, Ft. Leavenworth, KS. Bill also was Instructor of Mathematics, Central Missouri State University.
