There-s Strength in Numbers

by Daniella Ashkenazy

When a factory runs into a snag in production, management usually calls in an engineering consultant or a team of economists. In the future, executives may prefer to phone the Institute for Industrial Mathematics (IIM) in Be'er Sheva.

Most of the five-year-old institute's staff of mathematicians are among the more than 600,000 immigrants who have arrived from the former Soviet Union since 1989. The Institute was established to provide gainful full-time employment for these professionals and designed to make a dent in the 'ivory tower' character of the discipline that has given birth to mirthful quips about "the math professor who drowns in a swimming pool with an average depth of 50 cm."

"The choice of nomenclature - 'industrial mathematics' rather than 'applied mathematics' - stresses the practical focus of our work," says Dr. Adir Pridor, a graduate of the Hebrew University who serves as director of the Institute, which presently employs 20 mathematicians. Pridor notes that there is a wealth of 'inapplicable applied mathematics' that is too removed from real life to be of direct value to industrial management. The Institute for Industrial Mathematics, he stresses, is dedicated to tackling real problems with concrete, practical solutions. Its goal is to help large factories, business corporations and service complexes find the best way to operate, dealing with nagging unsolved problems that mar or jar smooth operation, affecting profitability and productivity.

The modus operandi of IIM is unique: after visiting the client's operation, all IIM staff gather to attack the problem at hand in a marathon 'brainstorming' session often lasting several days. The Institute believes innovative solutions can be derived from an interdisciplinary approach - bringing together people from different fields of expertise and letting them interact. Thus, each staff member was chosen for his mastery in particular areas of mathematics - quantitative physics, solid mechanics, or multiphase flow, to mention but a few. The outcome is cross-fertilization that allows the participants to crack complex questions that vex an organization and define and solve the real problem. The 'brainstorming session' proposes a solution; if it is accepted, the staff breaks up into smaller task forces to formulate the mathematical solutions and construct a computerized system that answers the client's needs.

Adir Pridor explains the role of the mathematician: "Most industries do not need fulltime mathematicians on their payroll," he clarifies with candor. "But inquiries prior to the establishment of the Institute indicated that if mathematicians' skills were made available on an ad-hoc basis - like engineering consultant firms - these services would be in demand."

"There are mathematical problems that no one has been able to solve adequately. There are mathematical problems that no one knows exist. Sometimes it takes a mathematician to discover that there are processes that can be improved by mathematical means," he says. Moreover, often the immediate problems presented to the Institute's staff by a prospective client turns out to be symptomatic of a larger problem which emerges in IIM's 'brainstorming' sessions.

Take, for example, a large paper mill that manufacturers giant 20-ton drums of paper - 5 meters long and 5 meters in diameter. The mill's clients, however, need smaller rolls or paper sheets. How does one cut the standard drum to fill orders for hundreds of byproducts with minimum wastage to the manufacturer? Can something be done to improve current practices? The outcome is a proposal for a complex computer program to aid decision-making, that weighs, in real time, a host of fluctuating variables, from the cost of raw materials at any given time and an updated forecast of pending orders, to interest on current stockpiles.

In another project, Bezek, the national telecommunications provider in Israel, contracted JIM to help optimize cost-effective design and flow of traffic within "telecommunication rings" - web-like link-ups used in advanced digital switching technologies.

The Institute for Industrial Mathematics serves as a pathmaker for mathematics as a discipline - since it focuses on math as a profit-making enterprise rather than on advancing science or 'spin-off with relevance to industry. "This is the first time someone has talked about making mathematics a 'paying proposition' - like any other supplier of services to industry," says Pridor. "There is a big difference between being sponsored by a public-spirited industrialist and being paid for your services by the same."

IIM's expertise has already been hired by Israeli giants such as the Dead Sea Works, Israel Military Industries, Bezek Telephone Company, the Eilat-Ashkelon Petroleum Line and Scitex. The Institute recently began working on its first international project, in Spain.