Faces of Operations Management — A New Phase of Beta

On 2 November Beta organizes an event where all researchers and PhD students of Beta will meet and get to know each other.  We have an attractive program with keynote presentations by three renowned researchers, pitches by PhD students, and short research presentations by faculty members. This event takes place in an attractive environment: The Spoorwegmuseum in Utrecht.

Since 1 January 2017, the Operations Management and Operations Research groups of Maastricht University, Wageningen University and Research, VU Amsterdam, University of Twente and Eindhoven University of Technology work together in Beta. In this way Beta shapes its ambition: to be the academic platform within the Netherlands for Operations Management and the interfaces with neighboring areas, for PhD students, postdocs, and faculty members. During the past months Beta has been redesigned and we are looking forward to our first meeting with all new members and PhD students in November.

At this first conference of the new Beta research school, we will have the following three keynote presentations by renowned researchers:
Prof. Lisa Maillart (University of Pittsburgh) – “Optimal pooling, batching and pasteurizing of donor human milk”
Prof. Daniele Vigo (University of Bologna) – “Selected Optimization Problems in Last-Mile Delivery”
Prof. Assaf Zeevi (Columbia University) – “Some flavors of statistical learning in operations”
For further details on the presentations, and short biographies of the presenters, see below.

Further, each of the universities will present two pieces of typical research: One pitch on a PhD project and one short presentation on larger research project or research line.

The event will be concluded with a dinner in a relaxed atmosphere.

Program
12.30 hrs         Registration & welcome & 5 minute walk to conference room
13.00 hrs         Opening by Geert-Jan van Houtum
13.10 hrs         Daniele Vigo (University of Bologna): “Selected Optimization Problems in Last-Mile Delivery”
13.55 hrs         Willem van Jaarsveld (TU/e): “Complexity in high-tech supply chains”
14.05 hrs         PhD pitches by PhD students:
.                         Maaike Hoogeboom (VU): “Fighting crime with algorithms: unpredictable routing”
.                         Bregje van der Staak (TU/e): “Planner versus algorithm: Human behavior in sales forecasting”
.                         Sonja Rohmer (WUR): “Last mile delivery of perishable products”
.               ·         Sajjad Rahimi Ghahroodi (UT): “Emergency supplier contracts: A service provider with limited local
.                         resources”
.                         Verena Jung (UM): “Collaboration in the supply chain”
14.25 hrs         Break
14.45 hrs         Lisa Maillart (University of Pittsburgh): “Optimal pooling, batching and pasteurizing of donor human milk”
15.30 hrs         Wout Dullaert (VU): “Managing and optimizing logistics networks”
15.40 hrs         Jacqueline Bloemhof (WUR): “Innovative, sustainable and quality driven supply chain management”
15.50 hrs         Break
16.15 hrs         Assaf Zeevi (Colombia University): “Some flavors of statistical learning in operations”
17.00 hrs         Martijn Mes (UT): “Anticipatory Logistics”
17.10 hrs         Stan van Hoesel (UM): “Policies for optimal (lateral) transshipment”
17.20 hrs         Presentation Beta PhD Award 2017
17.30 hrs         Tour through museum to dinner location
18.15 hrs         Dinner
20.30 hrs         Closure

Registration
The registration form is closed.

Prof. Daniele Vigo
Daniele Vigo is Full Professor of Operations Research at the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering of the University of Bologna and Visiting Professor at the Department of Information, Logistics and Innovation of the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. He is interested in the design of innovative algorithms for the solution of difficult decision and optimization problems arising in several applications fields ranging from Logistics to Energy Production and to Smart Cities. He is author of tens of scientific papers (in, among others Operations Research, European Journal of Operations Research, Management Science, Transportation Science, INFORMS Journal on Computing, Annals of OR, Discrete Applied Mathematics) and co-editor of some highly-cited books. He is president of the Italian OR society 2016-19 and coordinator of the EURO working group on Vehicle Routing and Logistics optimization.

Title presentation: Selected Optimization Problems in Last-Mile Delivery
Abstract: Last-mile delivery is a challenging arena for optimization where researchers and practitioners face large planning and operational problems with highly demanding requirements in terms of solution quality, flexibility and efficiency. We focus on the design of routing plans for distribution services and examine various important aspects that may impact their performance, such as the service area definition and the exploitation of outsourcing opportunities, as well as characteristics of the trips design which facilitate their implementation in practice.

Prof. Lisa Maillart
Lisa Maillart is a Full Professor and Co-Director of the Stochastic Modeling, Analysis and Control (SMAC) Laboratory in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. She recently received a Fulbright award, giving her the opportunity to visit TU/e from May-December 2017 to collaborate with researchers at TU/e on multiple projects related to maintenance optimization in healthcare, and to teach a graduate course on Markov Decision Processes (MDPs).
Prof. Maillart’s focus in applied probability as well as MDPs and Partially Observable MDPs (POMDPs) influences her research in maintenance optimization, healthcare operations and medical decision-making. She has recent publications in, among others Management Science, IIE Transactions, and INFORMS Journal on Computing. Prior to joining the faculty at Pitt, she served on the faculty of the Department of Operations in the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. She received her MS and BS in industrial and systems engineering from Virginia Tech, and her PhD in industrial and operations engineering from the University of Michigan. Her primary research interest is in sequential decision making under uncertainty, with applications in medical decision-making, healthcare operations, healthcare policy and maintenance optimization. She is a member of INFORMS, SMDM and IIE, and was recently named a Fulbright U.S. Scholar.

Title presentation: Optimal Pooling, Batching and Pasteurizing of Donor Human Milk
Abstract: Donated human milk – collected, processed and dispensed via milk banks – is the standard of care for premature neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) inpatient infants and unhealthy outpatient infants whose mothers cannot provide adequate supply. We take a multi-criteria integer programming approach to optimize the daily decisions involved in the (1) pooling of milk from different donors to meet macronutrient requirements across different product types, and (2) batching of pooled milk for efficient pasteurization. Our numerical results demonstrate significant improvements compared to historical and staff-generated decisions at Mothers’ Milk Bank of North Texas (MMBNT). Model implementation at MMBNT has quickly resolved chronic production imbalances, reduced labor requirements and improved NICU order fulfillment.

Prof. Assaf Zeevi
Assaf Zeevi is the Kravis Professor of Business at the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University. His research focuses on the formulation and analysis of mathematical models of complex systems, with particular research and teaching interests that lie in the intersection of Operations Research, Statistics, Computer Science and Economics. Recent application areas have been motivated by problems in healthcare analytics, dynamic pricing, recommendation engines and personalization, and the valuation and monetization of digital goods. Assaf received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. (Cum Laude) from the Technion, in Israel, and subsequently his Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is the recipient of several research awards including a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, an IBM Faculty Award, Google Research Award, as well as several best paper recognitions. Assaf is a member of several editorial boards in his professional community, as well as several advisory boards for companies in the high technology sector. Until 2017 he was editor-in-chief of Stochastic Systems.

Title presentation: Some Flavors of Statistical Learning in Operations
Abstract: As data becomes increasingly abundant, accessible, and a major driver of economic activity, significant attention has focused on machine learning tools for addressing a variety of data-driven decision making problems, including variations on traditional operations research problems. In this talk we will present some vignettes of research questions that involve ideas and tools from statistical learning that are blended into operations-type settings. The talk will highlight some concepts that are relevant both to problem formulation as well as solution methodology, and draw (hopefully) interesting connections to practical problem settings and application domains.