Ninety such business and industry projects have benefited in the past 12 years from the concentrated application of mathematics and computing at this annual problem-solving workshop, called the Mathematics in Industry Study Group (MISG).
Australian business and industry are continually searching for ways to become more innovative, productive and competitive. Mathematics is the language and toolbox for meeting these goals.
Mathematicians have a particular skill at problem-solving--their expertise has been used by industry for product design, process control and scheduling. Their influence can be felt in every industrial sector.
However, mathematics is an often-ignored and unvisited territory to many people. Its power for providing modelling, optimising and analytical tools is too frequently overlooked.
``I estimate that several man months of my company's time could have been saved if a mathematical approach had been taken earlier'', was the response from an industry participant at a recent MISG.
We often hear people saying a certain engineering software-package was used to design a structure. Have you ever thought what was behind those packages? The answer is that a mathematical description or model lies at the heart.
I went to see Jeff Koons' PUPPY at Sydney's Circular Quay last week. At the accompanying exhibition, documentation said that the construction of PUPPY was made possible through a design package which uses a complex mathematical description of the stresses in the metal frame which holds the soil, water and potted flowers.
I know this was a frivolous example, but the point is quite clear. Behind most of the manufactured objects we use every day, lie design considerations and process-control issues in production, as well as questions of how the goods should be distributed.