Sustainability Calling

Pierre MASSOTTE, Pri. Docent, has long worked for IBM in Quality then Advanced Technologies, then as scientific director in EMEA Manufacturing, to improve European Manufacturing plants and Development Laboratories competitivity. Lately, he joined “Ecole des Mines d'Alès” as Deputy Director within the Nîmes EMA Laboratory.Dr. Ing. Patrick Corsi is an international consultant specialized in breakthrough design innovation. After an engineering and managerial career in industry with IBM Corp., IBM France.

"The book is an interesting source of new concepts to redefine sustainability and how to use it in the decision-making process. The authors give an overview of the complexity of today�s world and provide new ideas and tools to help tackle this complexity...For people interested in the subject, the book will provide in-depth knowledge of sustainability on a global level." (Johnson Matthey Technology Review June 2017)

• LIST OF ACRONYMS xiii PREFACE xixINTRODUCTION xxiiiPART 1. MODELS THAT CAN ASPIRE TO BE BETTER SUITED TO FUTURE NEEDS 1CHAPTER 1. DISASSEMBLING SOME TRADITIONAL VIEWS 31.1. Time and space: past, present and future 31.2. The (big) law of correspondence 51.3. Intricate imbrications and their uncertainties 101.4. Many levels: subatomic, micro, meso, macro, chrono, etc. 11CHAPTER 2. IS GLOBALIZATION, OR HOLISM, REALLY A NEW PHENOMENON? 132.1. Some characteristics of the present globalization 132.2. A brief history of a very old concept: globalization 132.3. The nature of today’s globalization 172.4. Some features of today’s globalization 182.5. Impacts of a disruption: “catastrophe” in a global context 192.6. Management in economy: risks and disturbances are also global 202.7. Extending and transposing these concepts to enterprises 262.8. Consequences: collective consciousness and behavior 292.9. A common idea of “catastrophism” and the need for ecology 312.10. Should we try to predict that the worst is yet to come? 352.10.1. The question is not “knowing what will happen and when”, instead “what could and/or should happen” 352.10.2. Methods and tools related to conventional anticipation and prediction 372.11. What we can conclude at this stage 402.11.1. On process performance and governance guidance 402.11.2. On new constraints within a networked society 42CHAPTER 3. UNDERLYING DISTURBING PROCESSES: ASYMMETRIES, CORIOLIS AND CHIRALITY 473.1. By way of introduction 473.2. New ways of thinking 483.3. Information asymmetry 483.3.1. Symmetry and asymmetry in nature 483.3.2. A reminder on matter, dark matter and dark energy 493.3.3. What kind of matter and dark energy? Is it an asymmetry? 503.3.4. Physical or virtual substance? Aether and “mind stuff” 513.3.5. Asymmetry in nature: is this a novelty? 523.4. Information asymmetry in a call center business 543.5. General Information on asymmetry: antiglobalization corporations 573.6. Asymmetry in communication and decision systems 583.7. Decision-making in an asymmetric world 603.7.1. When does asymmetry occur? 613.7.2. Asymmetry due to mental predisposition (or soul) 613.7.3. Application 623.8. Chirality and symmetry and their impact on structures 643.8.1. Extensions of chirality 653.8.2. Applications of chirality 663.9. The Coriolis effect 683.9.1. A physics reminder: the dynamic movement of bodies 683.9.2. Description of the Coriolis effect 683.9.3. Displacement and moving of physical objects: a question of amplitude 693.9.4. Curvature of displacements on the Earth 703.9.5. Application to molecular physics 713.9.6. Insect flight stability too 713.9.7. The Coriolis effect on the shape of live beings 713.10. Characteristics of evolution: symmetric pattern growth 723.10.1. Growth process of living organisms 723.10.2. Local complexity growth 763.10.3. Characteristics of the fractal structures: applications 773.10.4. Traffic improvement 803.10.5. Sunflower considerations 833.11. Conclusions on underlying disturbing processes 853.11.1. Generalities 853.11.2. From rationality to ethics 863.11.3. Consequences: highlighted concepts for a new engineering methodology 873.12. Appendix 89CHAPTER 4. TIME AND SPACE REVISITED IN THE CONTEXT OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS 914.1. Time and space revisited in dwindling dance 914.2. The concept of time within complex systems 924.2.1. What is in an issue? 924.2.2. Notions relative to the perception of time: a static point of view 934.2.3. Digital time: a dynamic point of view 954.2.4. More about time with the Web 964.2.5. Time is not a continuous variable 994.3. The perception of space 1004.3.1. What is in an issue? 1004.3.2. On the perception of a disturbance 1014.4. Impacts related to the perception in space and time 1024.4.1. The increasing reach of media 1024.4.2. Knowledge management and the shrinking of the space-time system 1044.4.3. On the rationality of our world 1054.4.4. Are time and space essential parameters and variables? 1064.4.5. How are antagonisms linked to time? 1124.5. On the reversibility of time 1144.5.1. What is in a notion? 1144.5.2. Example 1: the study of an inverse function 1154.5.3. Examples 2: losing one’s key, wasting or forgetting an idea 1174.5.4. Consequences for practical life: time’s arrow 1184.5.5. On decision support systems, reversibility and sustainability 1204.6. Consequences for the complex systems surrounding us 1234.7. Conclusions 1294.7.1. Generalities 1294.7.2. About decision-making 132CHAPTER 5. THE ENTROPY OF SYSTEMS 1355.1. System entropy: general considerations 1355.1.1. Introduction 1355.1.2. Information and its underlying role in message and decision significance 1365.1.3. Consequences 1385.2. The issue and context of entropy within the framework of this book 1405.3. Entropy: definitions and main principles – from physics to Shannon 1415.3.1. Entropy: introduction and principles 1415.3.2. A comment 1435.4. Some application fields with consequences 1435.4.1. Entropy in the telecommunications systems 1445.4.2. Entropy in decision-making (for DSS applications) 1455.5. Generalization of the entropy concept: link with sustainability 1475.5.1. A comment 1485.5.2. An interpretation of entropy 1485.5.3. Diversity in measuring entropy 1505.6. Proposal for a new information theory approach 1515.7. Main conclusions 153PART 2. ON COMPETITIVENESS: NATURE AS AN OBVIOUS APPROACH IN SUSTAINABILITY 157INTRODUCTION TO PART 2 159CHAPTER 6. A CONTINUOUS SURVIVAL OF SPECIES? CRISIS AND CONSCIOUSNESS PRODUCTIONS 1636.1. Introduction and general considerations: what’s new behind life? 1636.2. Life survival: introduction and model transposition 1676.3. Discussing the situation in between the three areas 1726.4. Discussing the situation inside each of the three areas 1746.5. Evolution of life: impact on management decision systems 1756.5.1. How does the brain work? Are we exhaustively perceptive? 1766.5.2. Levels of consciousness in the brain: application to DSS 1786.5.3. Survival and decision-making: what makes the difference? 1816.5.4. Consequences 1836.6. Opening new thinking ways 1846.6.1. When consciousness leads to ethics 1846.7. Consciousness as an iterative feedback process growing from one level to another 1856.8. Life and equilibriums in ecosystems 1876.8.1. About the need for changing some paradigms 1886.8.2. Application to ecosystems 1896.8.3. Life: why and how? To perpetrate the survival of an ecosystem? 926.8.4. Who is behind “survival” considerations? Who is the supervisor? 1936.8.5. Survival methodologies: which attitude and behavior? 1956.8.6. Role time and evolution mechanisms in survival 1976.9 Conclusions 1986.10. Consequences and action plan 200CHAPTER 7. AGING AND SURVIVAL: APPLICATION TO HUMAN BEINGS, EUSOCIALITY AND AN INCLUSIVE SOCIETY 2037.1. A general consideration: what is new behind life? 2037.2. A little bit more about aging, survival and eusociality 2037.3. Does aging equal disability? 2047.4. Aging and intelligence: variance and time dependency 2077.5. Back to eusociality 2127.5.1. What is in a concept? 2127.5.2. Relationship with the “Inclusive Society” 2137.6. As a first conclusion 2167.7. Case study: aging, motivation and involvement in collaborative work 2197.7.1. Introducing the case 2197.7.2. The problem definition 2197.7.3. Why the aging of an organization is often linked to that of its members 2207.7.4. Aging and motivation 222CHAPTER 8. EVOLUTION OF LIFE PRINCIPLES: APPLICATION TO A CORPORATE POPULATION 2278.1. Introduction: corporate aging and dying 2278.2. The human resources situation of small- and medium-sized enterprises 2308.3. The human resources situation in senior enterprises 2318.4. Global evolution: the product lifecycle of an enterprise 2328.5. Product lifecycle management 2348.6. Example of corporate life and death: the saturation stage 2358.7. Product lifecycle of new technologies 2378.8. How to model the evolution of an organism (enterprise) 2398.9. How to measure and control aging in enterprises 240CONCLUSION TO PART 2 245PART 3. GOLDEN SECRETS AND MECHANISMS 249CHAPTER 9. TECHNOLOGY TOTALITARIANISM IN SOCIETY, CHANGE MANAGEMENT AND GOVERNANCE CONCERNS 2519.1. Introduction 2519.2. Consequences associated with Web usage 2529.3. Public–private governance: a privacy process issue 2539.4. The principle of impermanence: Snapchat and Confide 2549.5. Extension of the applications 2559.6. Pervasive network interconnections 2569.7. Enterprises: Web evolution and sustainability 2579.8. Additional comments about the control of instabilities 2589.9. Sustainable networks 259CHAPTER 10. PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICAL MECHANISMS OF SELF-ORGANIZATION: IN A WORLDWIDE COOPERATIVE CONTEXT 26110.1. Introduction: complexity in nature 26110.2. Complexification: main principles of the “fabricational” evolution 26310.2.1. Fundamental rules are quite simple and universal 26310.2.2. Application: an example of complexification 26610.2.3. What is next? 27010.3. Self-organization: the basic principles to understand system complexity 27110.3.1. Closed loop systems 27110.3.2. Analysis of the feedback loops 27210.4. Application to the real world 27410.4.1. Networks, social networks and Web applications 27410.4.2. The brain: the evolution of the human species is in continuous momentum 27610.5. Conclusions 27910.5.1. Impact on risk management 27910.5.2. Impact on system sustainability 280CHAPTER 11. COMPLEX SYSTEMS APPRAISAL: SUSTAINABILITY AND ENTROPY IN A WORLDWIDE COOPERATIVE CONTEXT 28311.1. Introduction 28311.2. The context 28511.3. Information systems: some application fields and the consequences 28711.3.1. Entropy in information systems: business intelligence 28711.3.2. Importance of entropy in an organization 29011.3.3. Recommendations and management practices in sustainable systems 29311.4. Evolution of entropy in complex systems 29511.4.1. Notion of time in artificial intelligence 29511.4.2. Temporal evolution of entropy in reasoning processes 29511.4.3. Discontinuities in the increase and reduction of the state vectors 29911.5. Underlying sustainability principles in information and decision 30211.5.1. Structuring in phases 30211.5.2. Analyzing the scientific thought 30311.5.3. Knowledge structuring principles 30411.5.4. Basic characteristics and measurement of an information system 30511.5.5. Increasing complex system design: measurement 30711.5.6. Entropy control in information systems: a set of practices 30811.6. Business intelligence systems and entropy 30911.6.1. Introduction 30911.6.2. The brain: some specificities 31011.6.3. The brain: underlying principles for a DSS organization 31211.6.4. Collaboration and collective approaches 31411.6.5. Loneliness: a common impact of collective approaches 31711.6.6. Organization of some target complex systems 32011.7. The holonic enterprise paradigm 32011.7.1. Introduction 32011.7.2. Properties of holons 32111.7.3. A transposition 32311.7.4. A comment 32511.8. Self-organization and entropy 32611.8.1. Discussing examples 32611.8.2. What comes after holonic systems? 32711.8.3. Evolution 32811.8.4. Consequences 33111.9. Analysis of new trends in sustainable production systems 33211.9.1. Introduction 33211.9.2. Research and development 33311.9.3. Emergence of modern networking: concepts and entropy 33511.9.4. Evolving organization of the networks 33611.9.5. Impact of disturbances 33711.9.6. Lean concepts: continuous flow manufacturing (CFM) and just-in-time (JIT) 33911.9.7. The general problem of “decoupling” processes 34111.9.8. Network and Web sciences 34111.10. Artificial life and collective thinking science 34411.10.1. General comments about bio-mimicry 34511.10.2. Bio-inspired information systems 34611.10.3. Reminder of bio-inspired technologies and their sustainability 34911.10.4. What about cloud computing? 35311.11. Conclusions 35511.11.1. Proposal for a new approach in information and business theory 35611.11.2. Conclusion 35911.11.3. Concluding remarks 360CHAPTER 12. TELEPATHY AND TELESYMPATHY 36112.1. About the brain 36112.2. The law of accelerating returns 36212.2.1. Introduction 36212.2.2. The role of the interconnections in the new paradigm 36312.2.3. Factors involved in a major change: skill mismatch 36412.2.4. Brain communication: telesympathy and telepathy 36612.2.5. Non-invasive brain–computer interface 36612.3. Telepathy: an ultimate process? 36712.3.1. Quantum entanglement and telepathy 36812.3.2. Quantum entanglement and teleportation 37012.4. Telesympathy: a less ambitious prerequisite 37012.4.1. Introduction 37012.4.2. Origin of telesympathy 37112.4.3. Definition of telesympathy 37212.4.4. A comment 37212.5. Conclusions 373BIBLIOGRAPHY 375INDEX 397