Overview

As of August 2002, I am an Anderson/Interface visiting assistant professors in natural systems. I hope to take ideas and inspiration from nature---in particular from colonies of ants, bees, wasps, and termites (insect societies are my research speciality)---and see how they might apply to industrial and managerial logistics and operations. Can nature provide us with new ways to solve complex industrial logistical problems, increase efficiency, and ideally minimize's industry's "footprint," i.e. its impact upon the environment?

One fruitful avenue is to harness the power of self-organization. Self-organization is "a process in which pattern at the global level of a system emerges solely from numerous interactions among the lower-level components of the system. Moreover, the rules specifying interactions among the system's components are executed using only local information, without reference to the global pattern" (Camazine et al. 2001). In other words, under the right conditions, system-level adaptive behavior can emerge from multiple interactions among lower level units. If we can use this system-level properties to solve problems, we are in the realm of an exciting new field Swarm intelligence, something insect societies have possessed for about 100 million years...

Background

Select publications

• Anderson, C., and D. W. McShea. 2001. Individual versus social complexity, with particular reference to ant colonies. Biological Reviews 76(2): 161-209.
• Anderson, C., N. R. Franks, and D. W. McShea. 2001. The complexity and hierarchical nature of tasks in insect societies. Animal Behaviour 62: 643-651.
• Anderson, C., and N. R. Franks. 2001. Teams in animal societies. Behavioral Ecology 12(5): 534-540.
• Anderson, C., and J. J. Bartholdi, III. 2000. Centralized versus decentralized control in manufacturing: lessons from social insects. Pages 92-108 in "Complexity and Complex Systems in Industry," Proceedings, University of Warwick, 19th-20th September 2000, (McCarthy, I. P. and Rakotobe-Joel T, Eds.). The University of Warwick, UK.
• Ratnieks, F. L. W., and C. Anderson 1999. Task partitioning in insect societies. Insectes Sociaux 46(2): 95-108.
• The rest of them...