THE RESOURCE SUPPLY SYSTEM - unece.org
Transcript of THE RESOURCE SUPPLY SYSTEM - unece.org
THE RESOURCE SUPPLY SYSTEMDR. DAVID C ELLIOTT
WHAT IS RESOURCE MANGEMENT?
A possible definition of what it is:
“An active process with the objective of providing the timely and efficient supply of a required Final Product to Users.”
Not project-specific.
A user does not usually know or care where a product comes from.
A Final Product is provided by a Resource Supply System (RSS) with many sources, activities, and contingencies.
SOME TERMINOLOGY
RESOURCE, a general term for a quantity that may be material, such as copper, or immaterial electricity.
PRODUCT is a quantity that may be an:
Intermediate Product, at any point in a resource chain of activities, such as copper ore or concentrate, but is not in a form desired by a user
Final Product, desired by and supplied to a user, such as metallic copper.
• Etc.
COMPONENTS OF AN RSS
DEMAND
AGENTS are the actors that carry out the activities that result in a product.
SOURCE
FINANCING, the lifeblood of the RSS
PHYSICAL SYSTEM
BACKGROUND against which RSS activity is carried out PRODUCT
Resulting in SUPPLY
HOW THE COMPONENTS FLOW: A CONCEPTUAL RSS
The heavy black box is the interface between the RSS and the larger WORLD economic system in which it exists.
DEMAND and SUPPLY are the entry and exit points for the RSS.
USE and USE WASTE boxes are outside the RSS that may feed back into it as potential sources, a concept for the Circular economy
RSSWORLD
WORLD
RSS
SOURCE The origin of a product. It may be:
Natural
Subsurface, such as a metallic ore body.
Surface such as water, sunlight, wind, etc.
Anthropogenic, the residue of human activity, such as biowaste or mine tailings.
Technical and scientific activity that identifies new types of uses and sources.
May be KNOWN or UNKNOWN
May or may not be commercial.
AGENTS, PHYSICAL SYSTEM, AND FINANCE
AGENTS, make the decisions on, and carry out, resource supply activities, including:
PHYSICAL SYSTEM AGENTS Producers: exploration, development, recovery. Transporters: pipelines, rail, tankers, power lines, etc. Processors: convert the initial raw source into a final product.
FINANCING AGENTS Banks, securities market, bonds, private financing, self financing, etc.
BACKGROUND Agents carry out their activities against a Background series of
contingencies:
Entitlement
Legal and regulatory contingencies
Political contingencies
Social and environmental contingencies
These are largely extrinsic to, and beyond, the control of a physical system and financing agents.
They must be satisfied for a project to proceed
THE RSS AS A COMPLEX SYSTEM
The diagram of an RSS in a previous slide is a simplified static snapshot of a single project.
In reality, each box can include many, often hundreds or more, agents or activities.
These are connected as a network, in which nodes represent the agents connected by links, that forms a dynamic, adaptive, complex system.
From https://www.solarwinds.com/NPM/SolarWinds
COMPLEX SYSTEM
Not just “complicated”.
Consists of many components that may interact.
Its behavior is difficult to predict because of non-linear interactions.
They have distinct properties beyond those of their components.
COMPLEX SYSTEMS The properties of complex systems have been extensively
studied (see References). They may:
Exhibit the “butterfly effect,” a dependence on initial conditions in which a minor change may result in significant non-linear, and unpredictable, difference in a later state.
Have emergent properties that are not apparent from the components considered alone.
Have cascading changes when a change in one component ripples through the system, causing unpredictable changes in other components.
Have abrupt critical changes in response to minor stimuli.
RMS: MANAGING THE RSS?
Resource management involves the identification and use of the “levers” in the RSS that may be manipulated with the intent of producing a desired result.
Most real-world RSS networks will have hundreds or thousands of dynamically interacting nodes and links, all with their own properties.
If the RSS is a complex system, how do you/can you manage it?
Some insight may be obtained from Network and Agent Based Models (ABM).
HOW TO STUDY A COMPLEX RSS
Flowcharts, which mainly illustrate sequential operations.
Networks, may have a high degree of complexity, and can be used to study the characteristics and dynamics of a resource supply system.
Agent Based Models (ABM) can simulate the actions and interactions of the individual components of an RSS to search for insight into the collective behavior of the system and agents.
WHAT NEXT?
This has been a very rapid and simplified overview.
I have a much lengthier and detailed report in preparation that I am still working on.
I plan to:
Build a network model with several sources, physical system agents, etc., to study its behaviour.
To use this as the basis of an Agent Based Model.
REFERENCESThere is a large literature. A few readily accessible starting ones are:
These Wikipedia articles provide overviews with links to many additional references:
Network science – Wikipedia
Agent-based model - Wikipedia
Complex system - Wikipedia
Arthur, W. B., 2021. Foundations of Complexity Economics. Nature Reviews Physics, Feb. 2021, Vol. 3 p. 136. Foundations of complexity economics | Nature Reviews Physics
Newman, M. E. J., 2003. The Structure and function of complex networks. SIAM Review 45. Extensive references. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/courses/2004/cscs535/review.pdf
NetLogo https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/ A free and powerful agent based modelling software package with an extensive models library.
The Santa Fe Institute has a wealth of information on complex systems, Home | Santa Fe Institute. This includes excellent free on-line courses.