Complex Decision-Making in Economy and Finance

1Engineering Complexity within Present-Day Industrial Systems

1.1. Introduction

This chapter describes some new basic concepts and mechanisms applicable to industrial systems and organizations. The resulting properties are necessary to analyze them and provide them, from their design stage, with the adaptability and reactivity required by the new challenges encountered in today’s economic world.

1.1.1. Reference definitions

In this chapter, we will refer to “system”, in Churchman’s sense [CHU 92], as any set of elements coordinated to achieve an objective. By “industry” we mean all economic activities that produce material goods or services through the transformation or implementation of added value on basic components or raw materials. Thus, a software development center, a production system, a manufacturing workshop, a travel agency, etc. are industrial systems. The study and analysis of a complex industrial system is based on its modeling.

Historically, we have first retained the quantitative aspect of the systems studied, then more recently, the qualitative aspect, for example through knowledge-based systems (KBS). The notion of complexity that we have just become aware of has been processed by the techniques of artificial intelligence, but the approach has remained based on the fact that we can mathematically formulate a problem using parameters, variables and algorithms. This “Galileo principle” assumes that the system is predictable and that there is no ambiguity; ...