Dr. Bartholdi's lecture entitled "Self-organizing Logistics Systems" focuses on the complex logistical systems operated by social insects, such as ants or bees. This idea has been successfully adapted to coordinate order-pickers in a warehouse. Using a protocol called "bucket brigades," the flow of work is smoothed and bottlenecks are removed. The bucket brigade protocol has increased pick rates by 20-50% at major distribution centers.

Tuesday talks is a series of lectures sponsored by the Georgia Tech Library featuring research by Georgai Tech faculty presented for the rest of us. For more information, email prgroup@library.gatech.edu