An agent-based fuzzy cognitive map approach to the strategic marketing planning for industrial firms

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Industrial Marketing Management. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2013 Elsevier B.V.Industrial marketing planning is a typical example of an unstructured decision making problem due to the large number of variables to consider and the uncertainty imposed on those variables. Although abundant studies identified barriers and facilitators of effective industrial marketing planning in practice, the literature still lacks practical tools and methods that marketing managers can use for the task. This paper applies fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) to industrial marketing planning. In particular, agent based inference method is proposed to overcome dynamic relationships, time lags, and reusability issues of FCM evaluation. MACOM simulator also is developed to help marketing managers conduct what-if scenarios to see the impacts of possible changes on the variables defined in an FCM that represents industrial marketing planning problem. The simulator is applied to an industrial marketing planning problem for a global software service company in South Korea. This study has practical implication as it supports marketing managers for industrial marketing planning that has large number of variables and their cause–effect relationships. It also contributes to FCM theory by providing an agent based method for the inference of FCM. Finally, MACOM also provides academics in the industrial marketing management discipline with a tool for developing and pre-verifying a conceptual model based on qualitative knowledge of marketing practitioners.Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (Korea

GIS and urban design

Although urban planning has used computer models and information systems sincethe 1950s and architectural practice has recently restructured to the use of computeraideddesign (CAD) and computer drafting software, urban design has hardly beentouched by the digital world. This is about to change as very fine scale spatial datarelevant to such design becomes routinely available, as 2dimensional GIS(geographic information systems) become linked to 3dimensional CAD packages,and as other kinds of photorealistic media are increasingly being fused with thesesoftware. In this chapter, we present the role of GIS in urban design, outlining whatcurrent desktop software is capable of and showing how various new techniques canbe developed which make such software highly suitable as basis for urban design.We first outline the nature of urban design and then present ideas about how varioussoftware might form a tool kit to aid its process. We then look in turn at: utilisingstandard mapping capabilities within GIS relevant to urban design; buildingfunctional extensions to GIS which measure local scale accessibility; providingsketch planning capability in GIS and linking 2-d to 3-d visualisations using low costnet-enabled CAD browsers. We finally conclude with some speculations on thefuture of GIS for urban design across networks whereby a wide range of participantsmight engage in the design process digitally but remotely

Coordination approaches and systems - part I : a strategic perspective

This is the first part of a two-part paper presenting a fundamental review and summary of research of design coordination and cooperation technologies. The theme of this review is aimed at the research conducted within the decision management aspect of design coordination. The focus is therefore on the strategies involved in making decisions and how these strategies are used to satisfy design requirements. The paper reviews research within collaborative and coordinated design, project and workflow management, and, task and organization models. The research reviewed has attempted to identify fundamental coordination mechanisms from different domains, however it is concluded that domain independent mechanisms need to be augmented with domain specific mechanisms to facilitate coordination. Part II is a review of design coordination from an operational perspective

Technic and Collaboration Breakdown Structures: Drivers of collaborative problem solving approaches in a supply chain context

Problem Solving Methodologies have been par excellence a cornerstone element of the firms’ strategy on achieving effective continuous improvement. But the enterprise evolution towards an extended environment characterized by network-based organization has radically changed the problem solving paradigms. This paper aims to propose a generic and collaborative methodology addressing more complex and distributed problems, dealing with Supply Chain issues and having a key role as a driver for building global competitive advantages and create superior performances at a Supply Chain level

A Large International River: The Danube. Summary of Hydrological Conditions and Water Management Problems in the Danube Basin

The demand of policy makers and managers to find environmentally sound and sustainable economic development is obvious. At the same time, various branches of sciences dealing with environmental issues have become more and more specialized. The solution to problems -- often of a global character -- requires the interdisciplinary analysis of versatile systems consisting of natural, economic and social elements of the environment. Within the long series of water related topics of IIASA's Environment Program, a new project "Decision Support Systems for Managing Large International Rivers" (LIR) was recently launched. The formulation of environmentally sound management policy for land-use and water resources development requires the reliable prediction of the impacts of different human interventions in order to eliminate conflicts between different interest groups, and to preserve the quality of life in both the biosphere and society. Several models for the assessment of various environmental impacts already exist, but the large scale of river basins and the amount of data -- the availability of which is even limited in some cases -- require the development of aggregated systems of models that can provide decision makers with easily understandable information at various hierarchical levels. Considering this requirement, the objective of the project is to construct a computer-based interactive data and information system to facilitate the effective participation of policy making authorities in determining current conditions and expected changes in hydrological systems. The outline of LIR emphasizes the importance of the preparation of case studies. Their role is not only to check the applicability on the system for solving actually occurring problems, but the analysis of the basins as cases will assist in selecting the crucial questions that should be answered by the Decision Support System. The Danube basin was chosen as the first case study to be investigated in the framework of LIR. The reason for this choice is partly that IIASA is located in the basin, and, thus all information easily accessible. The international character of the river (there are 8 riparian countries and 3 others sharing a small part of the catchment), the rapidly developing problems of the utilization of water (canalization, increasing transboundary pollution, seasonal water shortage), and the efforts of the riparian countries to improve the conditions of water resources development within the basin (which is clearly indicated by the fact that a joint declaration was signed) are also reasons supporting the selection of the Danube as the first case study. Naturally, the hydrological conditions of the river system and the water management problems occurring within the catchment are well known for the experts in water sciences working in the riparian countries. For experts participating in the project and coming from other countries, or, representing other scientific disciplines, it is necessary, however, to summarize the most important information describing the water regime of the river system and the obstacles hindering the development of water resources in the basin. This working paper and the detailed list of references provide more information on water management in the Danube basin

Combining Homotopy Methods and Numerical Optimal Control to Solve Motion Planning Problems

This paper presents a systematic approach for computing local solutions to motion planning problems in non-convex environments using numerical optimal control techniques. It extends the range of use of state-of-the-art numerical optimal control tools to problem classes where these tools have previously not been applicable. Today these problems are typically solved using motion planners based on randomized or graph search. The general principle is to define a homotopy that perturbs, or preferably relaxes, the original problem to an easily solved problem. By combining a Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) method with a homotopy approach that gradually transforms the problem from a relaxed one to the original one, practically relevant locally optimal solutions to the motion planning problem can be computed. The approach is demonstrated in motion planning problems in challenging 2D and 3D environments, where the presented method significantly outperforms a state-of-the-art open-source optimizing sampled-based planner commonly used as benchmark