BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : AUGUST 7, 2000 ISSUE
SPECIAL REPORT Software That Plows through Possibilities Evolutionary design was a revolutionary notion when Rajasingh S. Israel first heard about it back in the late 1980s. But Israel, an engineer with General Electric Co.'s (GE) Lighting Technology Div. in Cleveland, decided to give it a whirl. After all, the new software had been created at GE's research and development center. And Israel needed something radical: His task was to dramatically improve the energy efficiency of the halogen light bulbs popular in retail stores. ''Ordinary halogen bulbs are extremely inefficient,'' says Israel. ''Only about 10% of the energy you put in comes out as light. The other 90% comes out as heat.'' For commercial users, that can mean tens of thousands of dollars are squandered every year. What Israel wanted was a transparent coating on the bulb that would reflect the infrared rays, or heat, back into the bulb--without interfering with the visible-light rays. That would help keep the filament hot and glowing, so less electricity would be needed to produce light. Designing such a coating was only half the job, though. Israel also had to develop a method for applying it cheaply. And the interplay between coating formulation and the manufacturing process made the task complicated. Every tweak of the coating would require a change in the manufacturing process--and vice versa. ''The coating has a very complex structure,'' Israel explains. ''It's about one-twentieth as thin as a hair, and within that thickness we have multiple layers of different materials.'' A BETTER WAY. Israel slaved for several years with no luck. Then he cranked up GE's new evolutionary-design software, dubbed Engineous. In a few months, Israel had his answer. GE unveiled its Halogen energy-saving bulb in 1991. Engineous is basically a framework for finding optimum solutions. Using genetic algorithms and neural networks, it takes various elements of good solutions, then reshuffles them in myriad ways to ''breed'' thousands of alternative solutions--until it finds the best answer. Renamed iSight, the software has been available outside GE since 1995, after GE researchers founded Engineous Software Inc. in Morrisville, N.C. Now, evolutionary design is getting hot. Genetic algorithms and neural nets are helping to create better designs for all kinds of products, from silicon chips to robots and bridges. At the University of Wisconsin in Madison, researchers recently ''bred'' a new diesel engine that promises to slash emissions of nitrous oxides and soot by 50% or more. It also consumes 15% less fuel. Sometimes the evolutionary approach yields novel and surprising designs--like the satellite truss, or support boom, developed by researcher Andy J. Keane at Britain's University of Southampton. Typically such trusses have straight sides, like the tall TV-antenna towers common in rural areas. But when genetic algorithms were told to minimize the transmission of vibrations along the truss, they surprised everyone. After evolving progressively better solutions over 18 generations, Keane ended up, two weeks later, with a truss worthy of a sculpture garden. Its geometry is so counter-intuitive that he built a scale model of one side to double-check the computer. Sure enough, the odd-looking shape reduces vibrations to almost zero. No doubt more surprises are in store, as engineers launch evolutionary-design techniques into still unexplored realms. By Otis Port _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS Thinking Machines TABLE: Let There Be More Light TABLE: A Quick Primer Plant Manager in a Box Software That Plows through Possibilities Agents of Change on the Factory Floor A Global Think Tank Targets the Factory TABLE: Leading Lights in Intelligent Manufacturing Manufacturing Masters Its ABCs INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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