Complex Decision-Making in Economy and Finance. Pierre Massotte
of databases: relevant information is managed, updated and immediately available wherever it is located; it comes from a single and close virtual system;
– the drastic reduction in transaction costs: information processing has become accessible to everyone regardless of complexity;
– openness to the world: an industrial company can find a solution or part of a solution (knowledge, algorithm, component, assembly, production site, etc.) at the lowest cost anywhere on the planet and negotiate its acquisition.
These properties are those that we classify under the headings “lean” and “agile manufacturing”.
2.1.2.3. Zero crack criterion
This criterion is also the credibility of the system in which we operate. Parameters such as quality, reliability, performance, availability or even serviceability help to achieve this. However, according to an IBM internal quote, “the product involves its organization”. Indeed, any dysfunction, weakening or abnormal behavior of a production system will have an impact, immediately or in the long term, on the quality and performance of the resulting product or service.
As we have seen previously, the evolution of a product throughout its lifecycle is highly dependent on the system’s situation that generates or transforms it. The observation is all the more critical as a production organization behaves like a nonlinear programmable network, with feedback loops and dynamic and time-varying interactions. This implies positioning control systems at the interaction level, knowing that due to the presence of phenomena sensitive to the initial conditions, the priority is no longer at the function level, but at the interaction level.
2.1.2.4. Zero friction criterion
Companies must communicate and operate in a distributed way, in “network of networks” mode. The quality of communications and interactions is essential. It is therefore a question of having mobile teams (on the intellectual, cultural and physical levels, etc.) adaptable to unexpected situations, with non-selected partners, in innovative and unforeseen fields. This implies the formation of instant, multidisciplinary teams, which must operate without friction, using their creation, around common global objectives, in limited areas of freedom. The mobilization of such teams requires “sociable” entities, capable of working as a team in a spirit of cooperation and unfailing competition.
2.1.3. The challenges of such organizations
In self-organized systems, adaptability and the emergence of new orders are the strong points that allow them to react dynamically to changing demand conditions and needs.
With the advent of the Internet, this reactivity is permanent and responds to a constraint that is becoming more pressing every day and that we have great difficulty integrating into our processes: “faster, faster, etc.”. In this case, how can we find the right balance between the “credibility” of systems (the reliability and quality of systems are always built according to learning curves, well determined and which require time!) and the change in “disaster” mode (in the mathematical sense of the term which implies the notion of discontinuity and revolution by going through successive cycles or phases: disorder-reconfiguration-order)?
One approach is therefore to use the “dynamic stability” model, which is very well known in large companies. We will limit ourselves here to describing some aspects related to our new economic, social and cultural paradigm.
2.1.3.1. Dynamic stability and transversal culture
We all know that changes and innovations are the result of the profound control of transversal processes in a network of networking companies (a much more powerful concept than that of an extended company). More explicitly:
– we know that creativity and innovation are linked to the progressive implementation of various technologies and the frontiers of several sciences (engineering sciences, life sciences, humanities and social sciences, etc.). We use multidisciplinary techniques here, as is the case at, for example, the Santa Fe Institute and in MIT Interscience Centres;
– similarly, to ensure the emergence of innovative products under conditions of reactivity and well-defined “sustainable development”, we are dealing here with the entire product life-cycle. We will then speak of a vertical integration of functions, with optimizing approaches, such as “continuous process improvement”;
– we also know that our new network organization requires good control and coherence of all processes and we will talk about the horizontal integration of processes. The latter often requires a review of the associated processes and procedures, and therefore the re-engineering of distributed systems.
These particular constraints are difficult to address simultaneously. We will therefore be obliged to simplify the process by identifying the necessary subcultures, the criteria of competition and cooperation that will lead us to coopetition or comperation between vertical and transversal processes and by making subtle and balanced aggregations.
2.1.3.2. Dynamic stability and quality
We mentioned the fact that the quality and performance of a process always requires time and effort.
The challenge is to reconcile these imperatives with those of e-business. This concerns the rapid implementation of a quality assurance and certification system (required for large volumes) or a global and total quality approach (as part of continuous process improvement and a dynamic customer-focused approach through mass customization).
In the first two cases, and to a lesser extent in the third case, it is a question of “hardening” and strictly controlling processes, using techniques such as six-sigma. This makes it difficult to adapt in a reactive and dynamic way to unstable and changing contexts.
2.1.3.3. Dynamic stability and time
Technologies are evolving rapidly, and there is a growing difficulty in adapting not only skills but also structures and infrastructure. How then can we reconcile resource adaptability, return on investment, dynamic reconfiguration of organizations and process control? How can all stakeholders be quickly involved in a global approach? This requires homogeneous and coherent modes of communication, thought, action, cooperation, creation, design, etc. How can we manage in real-time distributed production systems, process and workshop reconfigurations, relocations and company restructuring in a global and international environment? Dynamic stability requires a fine management of time, logistics and environmental constraints.
Taking into account all the constraints mentioned above, the implementation of the “dynamic stability” model must closely involve and integrate all the actors involved in the life-cycle of a product or service, whether they are R&D centers, clients, suppliers, distributed production systems, logistics, finance, or social and political actors.
2.1.4. Concepts of sociability and emergence of order
In a didactic context, sociability (this word dates from the 17th Century) refers to the ability of a system to associate and bring together a number of similar entities and make them live agreeably and harmoniously at all times. By extension, sociability expresses the character of a group of living beings that promotes human relationships, particularly intellectual or social relationships [WIL 00]. This founding father of sociobiology explains in his book that most of the behavioral components of living organisms, and of course the conduct of human or social groups such as ants, have a genetic predestination. Thus, the sociability of groups of living beings is statically embedded in genes and becomes an integral part of their nature.
However, sociability can be seen as the manifestation of a dynamic process and the belonging of an entity to a larger group, and therefore to a social body, because there are mutual influences.