Managing Complexity

This is the first book to describe large-scale complex adaptive systems and their application to practical business problems to yield excellent returns on investment. Various case studies are included ranging from real-time scheduling of 2,000 taxis in London and 10% of world capacity of seagoing tankers transporting crude oil around the globe, to adaptive cargo delivery to the International Space Station, semantic processing of scientific abstracts, dynamic patterns discovery from large quantity of data, real-time management of global supply chains and adaptive management of design modifications of large aircraft wings. The applications are backed up with a concise outline of the fundamental concepts, principles and methods of Complexity Science. An insight is provided into the connection between digital technology and the ever-increasing complexity of contemporary social and economic environments and a powerful method of managing complexity is described in some detail. The book contains an extensive description of the fundamentals of multi-agent technology, which has been developed by the authors and used in the design of complex adaptive software and complex adaptive business processes.

George Rzevski is an academic, entrepreneur and consultant based in London, UK. He is Professor Emeritus in the Complexity and Design Research Group at The Open University, UK, where he previously served as Director of the Centre for the Design of Intelligent Systems, and Executive Chairman, Multi-Agent Technology, Ltd., London, UK. In tribute to his successful career, the University recently established the The George Rzevski Complexity Laboratory. Professor Rzevski has edited a number of books and published a large number of papers in the areas of Applied Complexity Science, Design, Artificial Intelligence, Multi-Agent Technology and Information Society. Throughout his academic career he has worked as a consultant for private companies, government administrations, and the EU on various issues related to advanced information technologies, advising such well known companies as ITT Communications, ICL Computers, IBM, and Philips. Professor Rzevski and co-author Petr Skobolev are joint founders of a network of advanced technology companies. They include Magenta Corporation, London, UK and Samara, Russia; Rzevski Solutions Ltd., London; Knowledge Genesis Ltd., London, UK and Hanover, Germany; Smart Solutions Ltd., Samara; and Multi-Agent Technology Ltd., London, UK. They jointly hold three UK and international patents on multi-agent systems for logistics, dynamic data mining and semantic processing. Professor Skobelev is founder, President, and Product/Technology Leader of the software engineering company Smart Solutions Ltd. in Samara, Russia, recognized in 2013 as one of the most innovative and fastest-growing companies in Russia. He focuses on developing multi-agent technology and solutions. He is also Director and co-owner, with Professor Rzevski, of Multi-Agent Technology, Ltd., London, UK He is also Senior Researcher at the Institute of Control of Complex Systems of the Russian Academy of Science and Professor of Multi-Agent Systems at the Volga Region Academy of Telecommunications and Informatics, Samara State Aerospace University and State University of Railways. Dr. Skobelev's current research interests include multi-agent platforms and applications, aw well as emergent intelligence. He has authored over 150 publications in his field.