framing the field of smart service systems with human factors at core richard c. larson november 20,...
TRANSCRIPT
Framing the Field of Smart Service Systems with Human Factors at Core
Richard C. Larson
November 20, 2014
Services?
• By subtraction: NOT– Manufacturing– Mining– Agriculture
• Yes: Health care, education, transportation, finance, government, entertainment, sports, utilities such as communication, IT, public safety, etc.
Service Science??
Oldies But Goodies…..
• Number please. These words were once heard when picking up the telephone
• Floor please? Only a few decades ago, a human elevator operator spoke these words
• Fill it up? You heard this question when stopping to get gasoline.
• Do you want any large bills? A bank teller’s question.
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Evolution of Services
• Think of any major service – telephone, banking, gas stations, supermarkets, air travel, paying taxes, U.S. Postal Service, buying Red Sox tickets…
• Over the years, paid labor has been subtracted out, and our labor has been inserted – usually facilitated by technology.
Just Think of IT Services!
I used to say…….
• How did I ever exist without word processors?
• How did I ever exist without email?
• How did I ever exist without the WWW?
Now I say,
• How did I ever exist without Google?
The Science of Services is Not New
• Consider Queueing. Many, perhaps most services involve queueing.
• Two years ago the science and physics of queueing celebrated its 100th birthday!
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The Birth of Queueing Physics
1910 - 1915
Copenhagen, Denmark
A. K. Erlang, Danish Telephone Engineer
“Erlang’s formulas” have stood the test of time.
http://www.polytechphotos.dk/pics/A.K_Erlang.jpg
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“It often occurs that the major contribution of the operations research worker is to decide
what is the real problem.”
Elevator delays in New York City, 1950’s (Story via Russ Ackoff)
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http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/ne/p/2005/3905elevator500x666.jpg
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Mirrors Next to Elevators
• How many theorems were proved?
• How many equations?
• How many variables?
• How much common sense and lateral thinking?
http://www.hollychristian.com/images/galvanized-mirror-2.jpg
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The Birth of the Psychology of Queueing
Diversions– “Mirrors”.......................................– “Silent Radio” from Los Angeles– “Captive Audience TV”– Manhattan Savings Bank
And sometimes the psychology component can save lives!!
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The Queue Discipline for Getting a Dial Tone
Two priority queue
You enter as priority 2, LCFS
If you are still without dial tone after 15 seconds you shift to Priority 1 FCFS.
No priority 2 customers are served when the priority 1 queue is nonempty
Why does this make sense?
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Many Questions
• Does “Smart” mean computers?
• What is the appropriate balance: technology, human factors, systems analysis, OR?
• Is innovation by accretion a sufficient framing?
• Does there exist any service system for which one single performance measure suffices?
• Suggested axiom: There exists no silver bullet!
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In Much of Academia the Culture is to Overly Formalize
• Sometimes only with a toy version of the true problem.
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Excess Rigor Can Lead to Rigor Mortis!
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Rigor Mortis
• The irreversible stiffening of a profession caused by excessive fixation with rigor.
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The Importance of Human Behavior in What We Do
• In many circles, Operations Research is trivialized and caricatured as getting widgets from A to B most efficiently. “You do OR, oh, you are an optimizer!”
• Trouble is that most of our work involves not inanimate objects but people. In many of our systems of interest, including airlines, health care, infrastructure, and supply chains, the response of humans - their reactions and behavior - are the first order issues to consider.
• This feature – humans first, all else second or third, is a recurring theme of this workshop.
Flu Fundamentals:
R0=pfrequency of daily contacts (“lambda”)
p=probability of transmitting infection, given contact
•Let’s talk about
Let’s talk about p
Let’s talk about The probability
distribution whose mean is R0
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Engineering Systems: At the intersection of Engineering, Management & Social Sciences
Engineering
Social SciencesManagement
ESD
“Holistic Trinity”
Consider urban traffic congestion
• A queue theorist sees this as a network of queues.
• But one familiar with the psychology of queues might see this as an environment that risks increased anxiety levels among drivers, perhaps even leading to ‘queue rage’.
• An economist might focus on lost productivity due to time wasted in traffic.
• An environmentalist would be concerned with air pollution and the increased carbon footprint.
• A traffic engineer might focus on better timing of the traffic lights. And so on
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Viewed by a Multi-disciplinary Service Scientist
• She would combine the best of all of these perspectives into an integrated, interdisciplinary analysis of urban traffic congestion.
• She would frame the problem not in a canyon but on a wide prairie.
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Viewed by a Multi-disciplinary Service Scientist
• She would include analysis of options not usually considered by canyon dwellers, options like
– Negotiated staggered work times for key employers,– Bike lanes to encourage commuting by bicycle,– Congestion pricing such as is done in Singapore and
London, – Incentives to use public transportation, – Incentives to car pool, – Local use of borrowed ‘zip cars, – Tax subsidies for new infrastructure supporting electric
vehicles,– Property tax relief for developers of high-density housing
near public transport stations, and more.
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Viewed by a Multi-disciplinary Service Scientist
• And her analysis would be just as rigorous as those of the canyon dwellers, so she must have considerably more expertise than that of a single discipline professional.
• When she does not have the deep knowledge required for some aspect of her work, she knows how to assemble strong interdisciplinary teams, to get the best from each team member. The results of her work could be new fundamental research findings and/or a set of feasible and imaginative policy alternatives that are implementable and that satisfy the often-conflicting goals of multiple stakeholders.
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Real Problems Do Not Self-Organize by Academic Discipline
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Tear Down These Walls!
1. Algebra2. Geometry3. Analytical geometry4. Calculus5. Biology5. Chemistry6. Physics7. Engineering8. Probability9. Mathematical modeling
