Operations Research Center - Side Story
Joint MIT/INFORMS Symposium:
Sunday, April 25
1-1:45 p.m. — "When OR is AND," Thomas L. Magnanti, dean of MIT School of Engineering. When is it possible (desirable) to bring together theory AND practice, to have both rigor AND relevance?
1:45-2:20 p.m. — "Overview of the Operations Research Center," James B. Orlin and John N. Tsitsiklis, co-directors.
2:50-4:10 p.m. — Supply Chain Management
"Modeling and Optimization of Supply Chains: Opportunities, Experiences and Challenges," Stephen C. Graves, MIT, and Sean Willems, Boston University. Presentation of a modeling framework for optimizing the placement of inventory across a supply chain.
"Inventory Inaccuracy: Its Causes, Consequences and Cures," Yua Kang, MIT, and Stanley Gershwin, MIT. In reality, inventory records are only estimates, and often not good estimates. Recent technology promises to make inventory estimates far more accurate.
"A Portfolio Approach for Procurement Contracts," David Simchi-Levi, MIT. Despite the non-strategic nature of commodity products, procurement decisions need to take into account inventory risk associated with inventory shortages or unsold products, as well as price risk associated with spot markets. A portfolio approach can be used to find the right trade-off between expected profit and risk.
2:50-4:10 p.m. — Data Driven Models
"Clustering Models to Improve Forecasts in Retail Merchandising," Nitin Patel, MIT, and Cytel Software Corp., Mahesh Kumar, MIT, and Rama Ramakrishnan, ProfitLogic, Inc. Forecasting short-term demand for hundreds of items is a routine activity in retail merchandising. The authors' approach clusters items into homogenous groups and models parameter estimates for each item as following a multivariate normal distribution.
"Mining Customer Quality of Service Measures from Transactional Data," Les D. Servi, MIT. Some data-rich systems measure transactional data (what happens when?) but cannot directly measure quality of service indicators (such as customer delay) needed for capacity investment decisions. Presentation of an approach to infer QoS measures as well as discusses its actual implementation in the field.
"Pattern Classification and Machine Learning via Large-Scale Optimization Methods," Robert M. Freund, MIT. A review of the key modeling tools used to develop pattern classification and machine learning algorithms using large-scale optimization methods.
4:40-6 p.m. — OR in the Public Sector
"Airline Security: A Lost Cause?" Arnold I. Barnett, MIT. Airline security has improved since 9/11, but the overall record is not stellar. A discussion of recent developments in passenger and luggage-hold screening, and the potential value of passenger profiling systems.
"25 Years of Urban Operations Research," Richard C. Larson, MIT. Cities experience the full gamut of OR problems. A review of the author's experience doing OR in New York City, in writing the textbook (with Amedeo Odoni) called "Urban Operations Research," and in supervising MIT ORC thesis students on urban OR problems.
"Network Economics in an Emerging Economy: The Case Study of India," Vijay Chandru, Indian Institute of Science and PicoPeta Simputers. Wireless telecommunications technologies are having a dramatic impact on the economics of communication, information transfer and markets in countries like India where the per-minute cost of telephony (local and long distance) are the lowest in the world.
4:40-6 p.m. — Financial Engineering and Revenue Management
"The Lifetime Optimizer," Dimitris J. Bertsimas, MIT, and Gina Mourtzinou, American Express. An application of robust multiperiod optimization to plan the financial life of an individual or a family.
"Manufacturing Revenue Management: A Negotiation Support System for Make-To-Order Transactions," Jérémie Gallien, Yann Le Tallec and Tor Schoenmey, MIT. Identifying near-optimal dynamic guidelines for the sales negotiation of price, quantity and delivery lead-time terms in make-to-order contracts.
"Revenue Management: Where Have We Been, Where Are We Going?" Barry Smith, Sabre Holdings. A review of the origins of revenue management, current practices and future directions.
4:40-6 p.m. — Some Realities of Decision-Making
"Model-based Rationality," Jeremy F. Shapiro, MIT and Slim Technologies. Presentation of a new set of principles, called model-based rationality, describing how managers can, should and, ultimately, will exploit data-driven, descriptive and prescriptive models to improve their decision-making.
"The Practice of Decision and Risk Analysis," Samuel Bodily, University of Virginia. A review of contemporary practice and challenges in decision analysis and risk management.
"Human Health Risks of Animal Antibiotics," Louis Anthony (Tony) Cox, Jr., Cox Associates, and NetAdvantage, Inc. How to regulate animal antibiotics more rationally to protect human health.
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