rpd international ( company )
the team are all employees at rpd international, the company owned by josh valman, hence the robot' s name .
josh valman is managing director of rpd international, a design and manufacturing company, operating a global supply chain of creative individuals, suppliers and factories .
just a short walk from london’s westminster tube station, in a fairly quiet open plan office in millbank tower is rpd international .
the teenager is the boss of rpd international, which allows companies of all sizes to pay a fixed retainer to access a flexible supply chain, comprising designers, engineers and distributors. “we can help any company to make any product, ” he says. “a six - person company can deliver as much as a 2000 - person company now. . ”
in 2013, aged 18, valman founded rpd international, a design and manufacturing firm, which boasted phenomenal growth from take - off. the company was valued at £1m within its first six months of trading .
london teenager josh valman is on a mission to change the way product design, engineering and manufacturing works around the world. tanya weaver meets with this young entrepreneur to discover how he became the ceo of the supply chain company rpd international
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the young entrepreneur still enjoys tinkering and works as a junior engineer for rpd international on sundays. “i’ll always be fascinated by problem - solving, ” he said .
the young entrepreneur still enjoys tinkering and works as a junior engineer for rpd international on sundays. “i’ll always be fascinated by problem - solving, ” he said. – telegraph .
the payouts will be based on seniority, not position at the company, betters said. everyone will get a certain dollar amount based on the number of months worked at brothers international as of april 30, 2017 .
josh valman is managing director of rpd international, a design and manufacturing company, operating a global supply chain of creative individuals, suppliers and factories. from their headquarters in london’s westminster, his teams provide product design, manufacturing and supply chain solutions to companies across europe, asia and america .
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at just 19 years old, josh valman has built a global manufacturing company, valued at more than £1 million .
“rpd differs from the miproto platform in that there are local project managers — if you pay the enterprise rate you will have a dedicated person at rpd who knows all of the projects undertaken by your company and who can act as a liaison between rpd, the company using the platform and the departments involved in each project. the miproto platform is more guided for individual people who have an idea and want help to get it made — there’s more hand holding .
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rpd international has pledged marketing, mentoring and business support as well as the design and manufacturing of the winner’s products. it has also offered a 20 per cent discount on the design and manufacture of products from any shortlisted applicant .
now the product designer, still just 19, has just closed a £250 000 seed funding round to value the company at more than £1m, just six months after he launched. the teenager is the boss of rpd international, which allows firms to pay a fixed retainer to access a flexible supply chain, comprising designers, engineers and distributors. “we can help to make any product. a six - person firm can deliver as much as a 2 000 - person company now, ” he says .
my name is josh valman, ceo of rpd international and we help companies develop and produce new products. we work directly with senior management and r & d or innovation teams, to solve problems, develop sustainable solutions and bring them to market .
attorney stephen jones, who represented brothers international in the case, said the dispute was resolved without filing, so there is no record of it on file .
but since then valman has been very selective in the investors he’s chosen. it’s not about the money, but more about what they can offer in terms of skills and connections. “some people i would take £5, 000 off but it’s not because it’s £5, 000, it’s because this guy is the director of this company who can connect me to that company who can in turn connect me to this other company. ”
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rpd ™ ‘s competitive advantage is delivering greater capacity at faster rates with much less material waste .
i can’t say i ever intended to start a business. my first company, miproto, came about as a scaling of a successful freelance career .
we’re powering six to 10 - person companies and manufacturing and delivering products at the same level a 200 - strong person company might, but quicker .
betters credits his employees with the growth of his business and hopes to inspire other company owners to give back to the people who helped them grow .
rpd currently employs 46 staff around the globe, and will turn over seven figures this financial year .
rpd ™ is pioneering the next industrial revolution; be a part of the future of additive manufacturing .
with his entrepreneur head on he got thinking and realised that companies, both large and small, rather than individuals were using this service. so, using the same global supply chain, in january 2014 he launched rpd international – a corporate platform that powers design and manufacturing for companies .
rpd ™ is fast, efficient, oem - qualified, faa - certified, and now in production .
bosch, cisco, hive by british gas, rpd international and fab lab london have joined the likes of ee, john lewis and unilever to pledge their support for a £1m launchpad competition, which will provide support for start - ups working in the internet of things (iot) space .
rapid competed in heat 3 of series 10, where despite being relatively inexperienced competitors themselves, team rpd proved to be the veteran competitors against newcomers track - tion and bucky the robot in their first battle. the team introduced themselves by revealing to dara ó briain that rpd international pledged to hire roboteers capable of defeating the newly improved rapid, and that the competition was the best place to scout talent .
with a company rumoured to be worth £5m, this 22 year - old founder proves that, when it comes to business, age is just a number ...
r - cast has realized a set of functions corresponding to the main steps of the rpd model: situation analysis, recognition, evaluation, coa implementation, and expectancy monitoring. fig. 2 shows the implemented rpd process .
he launched his company rpd international six months ago, with a plan to provide small companies with access to teams of designers, engineers and distributors. on his website josh says his mission is
to make product design and manufacturing accessible to everybody .
everybody has ideas ,
he writes .
so why should resources be the limiting factor to what this world can achieve ?
rpd currently employs 46 people and will turn over seven figures this financial year. clients include a jewellery company that creates pieces for high street retailers including topshop. josh may already have proven himself as an accomplished businessman, but he has not lost his love of engineering, and alongside his role as md he has taken up a sunday job as a junior engineer at his own firm .
i’m having fun. we’re building a company to continue having fun. it’s incredible how rpd has helped so many small companies compete with big firms. to have access to a global supply chain, without a seven to eight - figure investment, has completely changed what a small firm is capable of .
for larger companies and oem, the platform offers the ability to expand their capabilities, rather than replace exiting facilities. “the end - game for the rpd platform is that any company could customise the experience with their branding, releasing it to their internal teams or even to end customers. ” explained josh .
16. the decision - making process of claim 1, including agents operative to adjust the progress of the rpd model .
17. the decision - making process of claim 1, including agents operative to adjust the progress of the rpd model .
if there is no decision space applicable to t, i. e. , the rpd - agent cannot handle the task due to lack of expertise, this agent has to find one competent rpd - agent and transfer the task to that agent .
rpd' s distributed creativity model brings together talent and experience from all over the world, to look at problems very differently .
realizing that the success of his company is based on his employees, travis betters decided to give the entire settlement to his 50 staffers, with those who have more seniority getting the biggest chunks .
valman’s cv, with its four job roles – md of rpd international, md of miproto, owner of urltoken and freelance product design engineer – reads like that of someone at least ten years older. however, what gives it away is his schooling: vyners school in ickenham, west london, 2006 – 2013. he only completed his a levels last year !
betters cannot disclose the details due to the confidentiality agreement of the settlement, saying only that the amount was significant. he notified employees that they would be receiving the extra money via company e - mail .
snook, who has been with the company 10 years, plans to put the money toward her family' s expenses. she declined to say how much she received, indicating only that it was a large sum .
but what exactly does his company do? valman explains it simply as “rpd powers design and manufacturing departments for companies. ” basically he has built a global supply chain that consists of specialist factories and contractors to handle everything in a product development project from conception, to prototyping, to mass production to delivery. it can handle all or just a small part .
today, rpd is rumoured to be worth as much as £5m and boasts a current growth rate of 450% year - on - year .
[ 12 ] f. robichaud. implementing a naturalistic command agent design. in presented at the workshop on computerized representation of rpd, 2002 .
the competition is open to all european entrepreneurs, as long as their company is registered in the uk and has a working connection with either the london or cambridge tech clusters. closing date for submissions is 3 september 2014 .
founded in 2001, brothers international produces freeze - dried fruit snacks and value - priced wines under lost vineyards and sangrias as well as fruit ingredients. the retail products are sold at supermarkets nationwide, including walmart. betters, who now lives with his family in victor, ontario county, is a graduate of oakfield high school in genesee county and worked in the wholesale food business before launching brothers international with his brother matt, initially in batavia and now at 1143 lexington ave. in an industrial part of rochester .
the drum speaks to people across the global media and marketing sector who are bringing something a little different to the industry and talks to them about what little insights they can offer the rest of us. this week' s 10 questions with... features josh valman, founder of the ground breaking product development and manufacturing company rpd talks connectivity, spielberg and business lunch attire .
“rpd powers design and manufacturing departments for companies around the world. it’s a platform for any company to integrate into their firm — for example tct could run urltoken — anyone at tct could log in and start working on a product they wanted to develop, have it priced, have it made into 3d drawings, rapid prototyped, or manufactured all the way up to a million units .
that' s what happened to employees at brothers international food corp. the ceo of the rochester - based firm that makes fruit products and beverages received a financial windfall from a competitor in a legal settlement and gave it all back to the people who work there .
rpd operates new product development, manufacturing and supply chain elements of your business, to deliver new products to market and lead the pace of global innovation .
the r - cast architecture implements the collaborative - rpd model described above. fig. 1 shows an abstract view of the r - cast agent architecture .
with rpd, companies from 1 - 10, 000 people are able to design, prototype, manufacture and deliver with enormous efficiency, without the large investment .
back in his office, valman has employed people to work with the british standards institution (bsi) to certify rpd’s processes and facilities – the boring side of business, according to him, whilst he gets very little sleep jetting off all over the place hunting out suppliers and spreading the word of what rpd does .
titanium wire, argon gas, plasma arc, and process controls are at the heart of rpd ™, resulting in forged strength at the speed of innovation .
there have been several attempts in computerizing the rpd model. for example, there are rpd - related studies that used long - term memory structure [ 17 ], fuzzy techniques [ 12 ], and neural networks [ 7 ] to represent experiences. the navy dss system [ 9 ] implements a functional model that allows a decision maker to explore alternative hypothesis. there are also attempts in integrating rpd with agent technologies [ 10 ] [ 14 ] [ 17 ] [ 20 ]. for example, norling et al. [ 10 ] explored the ways of using rpd to enhance bdi agents so that the simulations of human societies would be more realistic. warwick, et al. [ 17 ] [ 20 ] investigated a computational approach to rpd to represent human decision - making for concept exploration, analysis, or evaluation. however, all of these attempts have ignored the support of team collaboration in the rpd decision - making process. this actually leaves the most exciting part of the rpd model as an open research issue: how a team of agents, with a shared computational rpd process, are supposed to work together in collaboratively developing situation awareness, in effectively anticipating others' information needs relevant to cues and expectancies, and in proactively sharing information to make better decisions under time pressure .
the miproto and rpd platforms empower non - technical users to realise their products with the knowledge that the engineers and manufacturers they are tapping into are qualified and vetted .
j. yen, j. yin, t. ioerger, m. miller, d. xu, r. volz ;
cast: collaborative agents for simulating teamwork ,
proceedings of the seventh international joint conference on artificial intelligence, pp. 1135 - 1142, aug. 2001 .
18 months ago josh valman founded miproto — a way to make product design and development accessible to everyone — a website where you could upload all of your product ideas and have them developed and manufactured ready for market. the platform proved a success not only for the general public to which it was aimed, but also with small and large companies alike. this realisation lead to further research and the development of a new, commercially biased platform — rpd international .
what is also important is that an agent can be involved in multiple decision tasks, which may or may not have relations. it is thus necessary for an rpd - agent to be able to effectively manage multiple attentions (rpd processes). for flexibility, we leave the issue of attention management open to the designers of agent architectures .
one company - one brand: waeco´s highly appreciated and valued solutions have been rebranded and will be offered by dometic from now on. our motivation is to build one strong, consistent and distinctive corporate brand out of these various valuable sub brands dometic consisted of before .
in an effort to use rpd for collaborative decision - making in teamwork settings, an objective of this invention is to establish a computational collaborative rpd model, and empower intelligent agents with such a model so that they can help a decision - making team to better collaborate with each other for effective team decision - making. collaborative rpd is quite different from an individual rpd model. collaborative rpd is more complex because the process involves interactions between the decision - making agent and its teammates (both human and intelligent agents). however, collaborative rpd is also much more powerful because the decision - making agent can leverage information processing capabilities of others (such as information gathering, filtering and fusing). thus, according to this invention, decisions can be made with better quality (e. g. , in terms of timeliness or correctness). the following description focuses on (1) types of decision - making tasks, (2) collaborative situation awareness, (3) collaborative story building, and (4) collaborative expectancy monitoring .
rpd supports businesses in finding the latest trends and opportunities. we focus on market fit and manufacturing viability, bringing detailed practical knowledge on manufacturing, differentiating from traditional agency models .
rpd works with you from concept, through to finished product. we work across design, engineering and electronics - integrating all of these services to reduce cost and time in handover .
founding miproto, an accessible way for anybody to have an idea produced, was a way to scale my freelance work. now rpd powers design and manufacturing for companies around the world .
case - based reasoning (cbr) is another psychological theory of human cognition [ 27 ], focusing on the process of reminding (experience - guided reasoning) and learning. while there is no clear line between rpd and cbr as far as their process models are concerned (e. g. , both cover experience retrieval, solution adaptation and evaluation), they differ in several important aspects. first, rpd originates from studies about how human experts make decisions under time pressure [ 5 ] [ 6 ]. experiences in rpd are prior decision - making cases, while experiences in cbr can be of any kind. from such a perspective, rpd can be taken as a subfield of cbr. second, while storage and retrieval are central aspects of cbr, research on rpd is more concerned with the iterative process of recognition refinement (i. e. , developing better situation awareness through information gathering). third, rpd systems ought to be aware of time stress and make as better decisions as time permitted, but this is not a requirement on cbr systems. in addition, the collaborative - rpd model implemented in r - cast takes a more extensive view, focusing not only on human - centered teamwork in making decisions, but also seriously addressing related issues such as collaborative situation awareness and expectancy monitoring .
sarah is a non - executive director of the police ict company, a member of the audit, risk and compliance committee of kings college london and an advisory board member at imperial college and oxford university. she has also worked as an advisor to a number of technology start - ups .
many companies have in - house facilities and systems for product development already, but they’re complex and wrestling with legacy issues. plus not everyone in that company can use them, as josh explained: “one of the companies that is using the rpd platform has over 10, 000 employees but only the ‘top’ 1000 employees has access to the manufacturing facilities. if one of the other 9, 000 employees has an idea, it’s very difficult for them to interrupt the system and experiment .
rpd currently employs 46 staff around the globe, and will turn over seven figures this financial year. “we’re growing 50 percent month - on - month at the moment, ” he said .
in our model, no restriction is placed on the sources of decision tasks. it could be a pre - specified step in a plan, could be a request from a human partner or other teammates, or could be dynamically identified by an agent itself. responding to a decision task t, an rpd - agent will first follow the procedure below to initialize the rpd process :
[ 10 ] e. norling, l. sonenberg, and r. ronnquist. enhancing multi - agent based simulation with human - like decision making strategies. in proceedings of the second international workshop on multi - agent based simulation (moss, s. and davidsson, p. eds), page 214 - 228, 2000 .
in terms of actually getting products made, josh explained: “we have nine factories - five in the uk, four in china — that are specialised in different aspects of production, different materials, different production run lengths etc. , we are expanding that network at the moment and looking for more international facilities for a global client base .
assuming that satisfying reflects human behavior better than optimizing [ 13 ], the rpd model argues for finding the first workable solution through recognizing the similarity between the current decision situation and previous decision experiences. the rpd model divides a decision - making process into two phases [ 5 ]: recognizing which course of action makes sense for the current situation; then evaluating the course of action by imagining it .
looking around you wouldn’t guess that this company has grown 50 per cent month on month since its launch in january 2014, employs 46 people and is on track to achieving a seven figure turnover this financial year. you certainly wouldn’t guess that the man at the helm is 19 - year old josh valman .
norsk titanium rapid plasma deposition ™ (rpd ™) is an faa - certified, oem - qualified additive manufacturing process that delivers structural titanium parts with reduced lead time and cost. the future is now .
this invention is directed to providing collaborative agents for simulating teamwork with a recognition - primed decision (rpd) model, thereby enhancing analysis through linking and sharing information using knowledge and experience distributed among team members .
“no one knew how old i was. the work kept coming in and at one point i was earning £10, 000 a week. ” now the product designer, still just 19, has just closed a £250, 000 seed funding round to value the company at more than £1m, just six months after he launched .
summary josh valman discusses how rpd combined people, expertise, and experience from around the world to re - design the concept of flying for a multi - billion $ airline, whilst teaching how to solve big ideas .
rpd allows you enter the market quickly with a small (1 - 100k) production run, and then scale. we help you validate a product’s success, and begin returning investment, whilst you setup your traditional processes .
team rpd had a memorable' hero shot' when they entered the arena in series 9, as josh valman opened an umbrella in the face of the steam jets. this umbrella actually belonged to tara ware [ 3 ] .
providing a recognition - primed decision (rpd) model enabling one or more of the agents to anticipate information needs, seek, fuse, and share information so as to enhance the quality or timeliness of decisions regarding the situation .
rpd is a specialist in scaling manufacturing and works with you on cost - down, certification, testing and optimisation for the product and supply chain. our facilities are designed to help you begin returning on investment, whilst developing internal production capabilities .
second, rpd - agents can use expectancies to refine a decision, leveraging some structures within the active ekb. the invalidation of some expectancies may indicate that the once workable recognition is no longer applicable to the changing situation. the already executed part of the selected course of actions may still make sense, but the rest part has to be adjusted. in such cases, the rpd - agent can start another round of recognition, using the experience refinement relation described earlier to develop a better solution .
so far rpd has worked with a range of clients including creative agencies such as london - based taxi studio, which as part of a national campaign for its client – plasterboard producer siniat – asked for 550 small foam bulls to be made and delivered .
this invention relates generally to decision - making and, in particular, to providing collaborative agents for simulating teamwork with a recognition - primed decision (rpd) model, thereby enhancing analysis through linking and sharing information using knowledge and experience distributed among team members .
explore the decision space hierarchy to pick one that is applicable to the decision task. a decision space ekb j is chosen and fixed in the rest of the rpd process if ft can be covered by c ekbj. however, the determination of ft itself is a high - demanding cognitive task, and the selected decision space might not be the desired one. thus, an internal mechanism of decision - space adaptation is highly needed so that the rpd - agent can recover from wrong selections of the decision space .
[ 5 ] g. a. klein. the recognition - primed decision (rpd) model: looking back, looking forward. naturalistic decision making (eds: c. e. zsambok and g. klein), pages 285 - 292, 1997 .
yoshikuni takashige joined fujitsu in 1984. he was engaged in international business, taking a strong leadership in developing fujitsu’s important strategic partnerships and joint ventures with global companies. since 2012, he has been responsible for portfolio strategy for fujitsu’s broad range of products and services. he leads the creation of fujitsu technology and service vision, which sets out fujitsu’s vision and its thinking on how organisations can innovate by leveraging digital technologies. he speaks about innovations internationally .
rapid, styled by the team as rapid, was a heavyweight robot which competed in series 9 and 10 of robot wars. a one - time grand finalist entered by design and manufacturing firm rpd international, rapid reached the second round of series 9, but after being drawn against aftershock at the beginning of the head - to - heads, it sustained terminal damage and forfeited from the competition. rapid was much more successful in series 10, reaching the grand final by throwing a robot out of the arena in all three battles leading up to it, setting the record for the quickest victory in the history of the show along the way, before succumbing to an explosive defeat at the hands of carbide in the robot redemption round .
supporting over 100 research and development (r & d) departments across europe and asia, valman operates rpd across two offices in the uk and china, with manufacturing facilities across 40 countries. valman counts the likes of unilever, vodafone and air new zealand as clients .
in the heat final, rapid faced robot wars veteran terrorhurtz for the second time in its career, for a place in the grand final. in preparation for its opponent' s powerful axe, team rpd applied a layer of hdpe to the top of their robot .
“we found that a lot of companies were using miproto — which was intended to be a consumer platform — just to have access to these facilities. we spoke to them and realised that something like rpd would make their life a lot easier. big name brands really value their designers but a lot of them work in 2d and outsource the work of turning those designs in to viable 3d cad and prototypes. this outsourcing is done with multiple companies, taking excessive time and money. rpd doesn’t replace any designer; it is simply a more efficient way to execute on ideas. ”
when the company went to raise further funding, the use by commercial users became more apparent. josh realised that the same problems miproto encountered when dealing with the general public were still going on in a professional environment — even big companies were dealing with terrible supply chains. “it would be taking them months and months to get things on the table. so by using the engineers and factories we had brought together for miproto we created a platform for companies. ”
collaborative agents for simulating teamwork (cast) are provided with a recognition - primed decision (rpd) model, thereby enhancing analysis through linking and sharing information using knowledge and experience distributed among team members. the rpd model is integrated within a cast architecture to the extent that agents can proactively seek and fuse information to enhance the quality and timeliness of the decision - making process. the approach, which is applicable to both human assistants and virtual teammates, can approximately track human' s decision - making process and effectively interact with human users. a disclosed example relates to teams of agents analyzing terrorist activities .
the computational rpd model implemented in r - cast is also a collaborative model. as shown in fig. 3, each r - cast agent (e. g. , s3 agent) may have a human partner, who can override the decisions suggested by the r - cast agent. an r - cast agent can also team up with other r - cast agents and interact with them. as far as a specific decision task is concerned, if one rpd - agent who has the required expertise is designated as the final decision maker, all the other r - cast agents will be supporters (of course, the supporters may be the final decision makers for other tasks). in the current implementation, a decision maker agent can collaborate with its human partner and the other supporting agents along the rpd process. here we mainly focus on exchanging information relevant to establishing situation awareness for decision - makings .
“in that situation, they’re using rpd to power lower level teams. by validating ideas externally, before dedicating expensive internal resources, companies can greatly expand the number of minds contributing to corporate innovation. an idea doesn’t always come from experience. that’s 9, 000 new contributors, with 0 new hires. ”
another was a british supercar manufacturer who tasked rpd with designing its key fob asking: ‘how can our customers feel the beauty of our engine, without opening the bonnet every day? ’. with a reasonable budget, valman combined three minds: an american artist, italian fashion designer and a scandinavian industrial designer .
i’m proud of the team we’ve built and the environment they create. it’s an incredible place where every single person room, in every office, is doing what they love. we’re proud of the fact we don’t retain ip created, if not linked to projects. so a lot of our teams are working on their own products, with access to the facilities. as much as developing a high value company is important – the most important feeling is that people love where they work .
“technically everything done on the rpd platform is done ‘in - house’ by us. we have teams of engineers all over the world that are specialised in different areas — from a nuclear submarine engineer to graduate and undergraduate designers and engineers that are building a portfolio. we can associate the right designers with the right projects .
charles is chief executive of baker dearing educational trust, which promotes and sustains university technical colleges. he has worked in industrial strategy, corporate finance and property development, mostly for charter plc, where he was an executive director from 1990 - 96. he was clerk to the mercers’ company from 1997 - 2008 when he became involved with the academies programme as a sponsor and project manager. he was academies adviser to partnerships for schools from 2008 - 10 and finance director of faber music ltd .
i decided to give 100 percent of the money to the employees of the company. i will not be receiving any proceeds ,
the e - mail read .
why? this was not part of a forecast or goal, not factored in with how we run the business. this was a unique situation where my experience paid off. my experience has also led me to hiring you, which continues to pay off every day. this is my way of saying thank you .
therefore, we have implemented an iterative, computational rpd model in r - cast, which explicitly incorporates the idea of “recognition refinement”, and supports situation reconsideration during action execution phase. the computational model is also much more flexible for us to investigate the time pressure issue. since r - cast agents can make a sequence of decisions (the length of the sequence is restricted by the external time pressure), with one decision refining the preceding ones, it can always return an acceptable decision relative to the timing constraints. this virtually guarantees no critical decision is missed under stress situations. pseudo - code of the iterative algorithm for rpd is as follows :
i never made a formal decision. these things just kind of happen! i was working on small projects, for really small amounts of money, and it escalated from there. over time people would introduce my work, rather than me – and i was able to get access to some much bigger corporate work. i spent a couple of years working on international supply chain projects – all remotely, for success fees. a lot of the skill in this, was having complete ignorance. supply chain is often a legacy business, and so stupid questions uncover big opportunities .
an agent architecture based on collaborative rpd responds to the challenges for hs decision - making teams in three important ways. first, terrorist detection and investigation rely on the capability of recognizing critical patterns from the current situations. the collaborative rpd model disclosed herein is per se recognition - primed. to achieve an improved situation awareness, r - cast allows agents in a team to anticipate the information needs of the decision - making agent (dma) based on their shared mental model, and to proactively seek, fuse and deliver relevant information to the decision - making agent. in addition, teammates can assist the dma in re - assessing situations by monitoring the changes to the relevant expectancies .
at 17 years old, josh valman was working in freelance product design, when he noticed a trend: “many people were coming to me with their product ideas because i was accessible, ” he explained. “it struck me that it was easier for them to come to a ‘kid’ and have him take on the work, than it was to sit down in front of a panel of designers at a firm and have their idea scrutinised to the nth degree. it was that spirit of accessibility that we embodied into the new company .
“at it’s core the rpd platform is an accessible closed - network of expertise in engineering and manufacturing. each engineer is personally interviewed and the output of each factory is assessed to ensure it meets the standards people need and expect. we have around 300 applicants per position and would recruit maybe five people from that pool, so the quality is very high .
the platform is also used extensively by creative branding and marketing industries. creative firms are using rpd to power ‘ideo’ like departments, producing and delivering physical prototypes and products as part of their service. the simplified process takes the expense out of manufacturing for these companies, allowing them to upload simple hand sketches and deliver physical products in a matter of days and weeks .
in accordance with the invention, the rpd model is integrated within the cast architecture to the extent that agents can proactively seek and fuse information to enhance the quality and timeliness of the decision - making process. the approach, which is applicable to both human assistants and virtual teammates, can approximately track human' s decision - making process and effectively interact with human users .
the potential of the rpd platform is obvious for smes and larger oems alike. specifically, the ability to either follow through an entire development cycle or just pick sketch - to - cad, 2d - to - 3d, cad - to–prototype or prototype - to - production assistance could be invaluable in relieving bottlenecks for established organisations, as well as helping to push startups forward .
broadly, this invention resides in a collaborative rpd model (section vi. a) and the r - cast software architecture (section vi. b) that is based on a shared decision - making process among team members. an anti - terrorist scenario and an application are also disclosed in section vii and viii, respectively, to show how r - cast agents can help human teams make decisions .
ben thompson is a bbc business reporter and presenter. he hosts bbc world’s flagship business daily bbc business live, and also covers business matters every friday on bbc breakfast. covering everything from the latest stock market and economic news to the breaking business developments around the world, ben also interviews leading figures and entrepreneurs. he looks at new tech start - ups, multi - national company results, and the outlook for individuals, nations and businesses around the world. ben lived and reported from new york and dubai serving as north america business correspondent and middle east business correspondent. prior to working in front of the camera he was a bbc business producer .
first, expectancies can be used to initiate a complete new decision. an expectancy states what will happen, serving as a gate - condition for keeping following the current recognition. some expectancies may be so crucial that whenever they conflict with the new observed facts, it indicates the decision maker has heavily misinterpreted the current situation. in such cases, the rpd - agent has to diagnose the current recognition, re - considering the whole space of the active ekb for another time .
an r - cast agent may trigger the rpd decision process in one of three modes: 1) based on human' s recognition, 2) based on agent' s recognition, or 3) based on decision points explicitly specified in a plan. in the first mode, the need for making a decision is first recognized by a human based on his expertise and his assessment of the current situation. he then delegates the identified decision - making task to his assistant agent, who will trigger the rpd process and inform other teammates of the decision - making request so that they can collaborate in making the decision. in the second mode, the need for making a decision is recognized by an agent based on its situation assessment. running in this mode, an r - cast agent needs to continually pay attention to the changes of cues or patterns of cues in order to recognize the emerging decision tasks. in the third mode, the needs for making decisions are explicitly specified in a team plan as fixed decision points, and the rpd process is triggered whenever agents reaches a decision point. generally, an r - cast agent running in the first mode can evolve into a system in the second mode, after the agent gain enough expertise (e. g. , cues to consider) for recognizing decision - making tasks through learning from humans. similarly, a system operating in the second mode can further evolve to act in the third mode .
there has been much theory and research presented with respect to team cognition, naturalistic decision - making, and collaborative technology [ 8 ] in relation to real world, complex domains of practice. however, there has been very little work in looking at cognitive agent architectures as a means to assist and support distributed team cognition and decision - making. this is particularly true as applied to naturalistic decision - making theory (e. g. , klein' s rpd framework [ 4 ]) .
after an rpd - agent makes a recognition, it will continuously monitor the associated expectancies until the completion of the selected course of actions. expectancy monitoring is one of the key features to support adaptive decision - makings. a dm agent can subscribe information relevant to the expectancies that need to be continuously monitored. such collaborative expectancy monitoring can take full advantage of the team' s distributed cognition, so that the dm agent can terminate the actions resulted from a wrong recognition at the earliest opportunity .
third, since rpd is an abstract model of a human' s decision - making process, r - cast naturally combines the attributes of human cognition with computational intelligence. through human interface, r - cast achieves a certain degree of adjustable autonomy in making decisions. this agent architecture cannot only enhance the capabilities of anti - terrorist analysts in identifying terrorist threats, but also pave the way for the next generation digital assistants that are “personalized” not only for individuals, but also for teams .
evaluation is a process for selecting a workable course of action. for human decision makers, evaluation is a mental simulation process: people imagine how the course of action may evolve and judge whether the relevant goals can be achieved. for an r - cast agent, we simplify the process by simulating the effects of the selected plan (i. e. , the chosen course of action) in the knowledge base (kb). first, the rpd - agent checks whether the preconditions of the selected plan is satisfiable with respect to its kb. if so, the agent asserts the effects of the plan into its kb and uses the kb engine to check whether the relevant goals become true. if a plan can pass such a two - phase kb evaluation, it is deemed as a workable solution for the current situation and the agent will coordinate with other teammates to execute the plan. otherwise, the agent has to make another round of recognition, going through the rpd process again .
others have been investigating (a) the use of software agents for robust battlefield simulation (e. g. , [ 21 ]); (b) the use of agents as aids to information filtering in a decision environment (e. g. , [ 22 ] [ 23 ]); (c) shared situation awareness (e. g. , [ 24 ]), cognitive models of situation awareness (e. g. , [ 25 ]); and (d) teaming with automation (e. g. , [ 26 ]). the collaborative - rpd model implemented in r - cast is linked to but also distinguished from the existing work in important ways. first, r - cast is the first rpd - enabled agent architecture designed for supporting teamwide collaborations (including human - agent and agent - agent collaborations). with collaboration in mind, we take an intensive view of the recognition phase of the rpd process and focus on the investigation of how proactive information exchange among teammates might affect the performance of a decision - making team. second, r - cast agents can proactively reason across decision spaces, seek missing information from external intelligence sources, exchange relevant information among teammates, and monitor an on - going decision against potential expectancy. third, the “cognitively - aware” agents, as teammates or decision aids, each assigned to a specific functional area, can be used to assist human teams (e. g. , military staff) in developing shared situation awareness while balancing information requirements against the dynamic and time sensitive decision - making process .
rpd is available with plans starting from a £100 + vat monthly deposit. each project is then priced and billed individually, based on an hourly rate and manufacturing costs. josh explains “the monthly deposit is a way for us to make sure we always have enough project managers. that way, there’s always somebody you can call and say ‘help! ’” he continues: “effectively, the larger the monthly deposit, the more projects you can do in a month and the cheaper they are. we also have several corporate plans that include things such as dedicated internal project managers for the customer. ”
rapid kept moving around the arena, despite the smoke, staying out of carbide' s way. rapid eventually moved into a clearer area and was hit by carbide' s weapon again. rapid stopped moving and the smoke texture changed from large quantities of thin smoke to thick, white smoke. carbide hit rapid a few more times at team rpd' s own request as' cease' was called. some time after' cease', rapid burst into flames completely, enveloping the whole robot in fire to the amusement of both teams. the charred remains of rapid were therefore eliminated from the competition .
it was revealed after this battle that aftershock had significantly bent the flipper arm, which required cutting in half and re - welding straight before its next fight against terrorhurtz. while the team reassembled the robot, they discovered that its gearbox had also seized, with one of its wheels locking up and potentially rendering it unable to drive straight. as the repairs required an extra hour to complete, and were therefore impossible to make within the allotted time, rapid was forced to forfeit its place in the remainder of the second round. jellyfish was reinstated to fight terrorhurtz in rapid' s place, with team rpd offering jellyfish their spare speed controller .
an agent may have multiple goals to pursue. an r - cast agent uses the am module to manage the attentions under its concern. for instance, based on the agent' s situation assessment and cooperation requests from other agents, the agent may pay more attention to one goal, or suspend the pursuit of one goal and switch to another. more specifically, a team process may involve various kinds of decisions (e. g. , working under multiple contexts). since each decision task will trigger one rpd process, it is the am' s responsibility to effectively and carefully adjust the decision - maker agent' s attentions on decision tasks .
in series 9, rapid' s flipper did not run flush to the floor, instead relying on small notches beside the flipper to breach ground clearances. this was altered for series 10, where although the flipper was still raised from the floor, the flipper now had a blade. the sides surrounding the flipper were also made much wider, leading team rpd to believe they possessed the lowest wedge in robot wars. however, josh valman referred to his robot as' completely overengineered', and ultimately their forfeit from series 9 was because of the inaccessibility of rapid' s parts during the repair process, and the time it would take to remanufacture essential parts .
smm stores the knowledge and information that are shared by all the member of a team. the smm implemented in r - cast contains four components: team processes (including the rpd process), team structure, shared domain knowledge, and information - needs graphs. the shared domain knowledge may include inter - agent conversation protocols and social norms to follow, domain - specific inference knowledge, etc. an information - needs graph maintains a dynamic, progress - sensitive structure of teammates' information - needs, ensuring that only relevant information is delivered to the right entity at the right time. the smm management module is responsible for updating and refining the smm and may entail inter - agent communications to maintain cross - agent consistency of certain critical parts of team members' smms.
rpd international is a design and manufacturing firm founded in 2013 by a british entrepreneur , josh valman . after only six months of its establishment , the business was worth £ 1 million . rpd operates a global supply chain of 100 + factories in 40 + countries . 
rpd international is a design and manufacturing firm founded in 2013 by a british entrepreneur, josh valman. after only six months of its establishment, the business was worth £ 1 million. rpd operates a global supply chain of 100 + factories in 40 + countries.
rpd international is a design and manufacturing firm founded in 2013 by a british entrepreneur, josh valman. after only six months of its establishment, the business was worth £ 1 million. rpd operates a global supply chain of 100 + factories in 40 + countries.