Ant Management -- Alternative Efficient Division Of Labor

Ant type

When an ant builds up, he can organize himself without any supervision from any leader.

Another mode of division among ants is flexible division of labor.

When an ant moves food back and forth, he meets the next ant and gives it to him. He looks back on himself, and when he meets ants in the upstream, he receives the food and gives it to the next ant.

It is not always necessary for an ant to change hands. The only fixed point is the starting point and destination.

This swarm intelligence has three advantages:

Flexibility can be adjusted rapidly according to environmental changes.

Two, strong and tough, even if an individual fails, the whole group can still operate.

Three, self organization does not require too much control or management from top to bottom, so that it can accomplish its own work.

Ant Management Analysis

For example, when ants gather for food, it is more obvious that ants can always find the shortest path and move food home.

When the food is found, two ants leave the nest at the same time and take two routes to the food place respectively.

A faster return will release more chemical pheromones on the route as a token.

Therefore, when other partners smell a heavier flavor, they will naturally take shorter routes.

This wisdom relies on two simple principles: leaving pheromones and following footprints.

Using this simple principle can solve complex problems.

For example, telecommunication networks must go through many nodes from Hawaii to Paris. Smart systems must be able to automatically avoid traffic jam.

HP labs has developed a way to design large numbers of software users to continue to flow and leave information between networks, just as ants leave pheromones, and phones follow these messages.

When a traffic jam is on the way, users of this route will also jam and send out signals naturally. This route will give up, and the telephone will change to a more smooth route, so that the traffic jam will be quickly relieved.

Examples of Ant Management Applications

A large retail chain uses this model to manage its logistics storage center.

In the past, the storage center picked up goods in a regional way, unless the last job was finished, the next hand could not take over.

Take books as an example, a person is responsible for loading business books, and another person is responsible for loading children's books.

The problem is that the speed of each person may be very large, and there is a difference in the demand for each commodity, so there are always people waiting to be completed before they can take over.

After research, the logistics center switched to "ant mode", one person constantly picking products, until the lower reaches to take over.