MIT IAP

IAP 2001 Activities by Sponsor

Operations Research Center

The Practice of Operations Research and Management Science
Sanne de Boer, Nicolas Stier
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)

Operations Research and Management Science are about modeling and solving real-world problems, but how do they really make a difference? Come hear practitioners in industry discuss their work and today's challenges.
Contact: Nicolas Stier or Sanne de Boer, E40-130, x3-7412, sanne@mit.edu

The Impact of OR on the Airline Industry: A Review of the State of the Art, and a Preview of Future Opportunities
Michael Clarke Consultant at Sabre
The airline industry has been described by many as one of the most technologically advanced industries around today. The primary players - the scheduled carriers rely on a wide variety of management information systems and decision support systems, which are typically developed using concepts from operations research and artificial intelligence. Operation research techniques have been applied to all areas of the airline industry, ranging from the strategic planning phase through to the post-analysis phase of operations. Like all other facets of today's society, the airline industry's reliance on computer technologies in conjunction with the application OR based decision support systems, has allowed carriers to increase productivity, reduce costs, and improve profitability. Airlines that are first to embrace new technologies often gain significant competitive advantages over the rest of the industry. Recent advances in mathematical programming techniques and increased computing power now enable airlines to solve problems that five years ago were thought to be unsolvable. There now exists the ability to solve large-scale decision models that encompass numerous disciplines within an airline, which have been traditionally dealt with independently. This in itself has transformed the very fundamental principles of the business.
Fri Jan 12, 01:30-02:30pm, E40-106

Making Optimal Decisions
Rina Schneur Verizon Laboratories
In the first part of this session I will present the type of optimization problems we solve at Verizon Laboratories and how we help the company make better decisions. These problems span across fields such as: telecommunication, logistics, and marketing. I will also discuss the challenges and excitements involved in modeling, applying optimization techniques and developing optimization software in an industry environment. Following the talk I will welcome any related questions.
Thu Jan 18, 12-01:00pm, E40-106

Research and Entrepreneurship: Neoptis, Inc. Story of an OR Startup
Jeremie Gallien CEO of Neoptis Inc. and Assistant Professor at MIT
In 1999 I founded Neoptis, a company developing sophisticated dynamic trading solutions for online business-to-business exchanges, corporate sales, procurement and auctions. In this seminar I propose to use my personal experience with Neoptis as the starting point to an open discussion specifically geared towards students interested in startup companies. Speaker Information: Jeremie Gallien is the Co-founder and Acting CEO of Neoptis, Inc., and he is also on leave from an Assistant Professor position with the Operations Management group of the Sloan School of Management. Jeremie got a PhD in Operations Research from MIT and an Engineering Degree in Production Systems from the Ecole des Mines de Paris.
Thu Jan 25, 12-01:00pm, E40-106

Optimization Models and Algorithms for Procurement
Sebastian Ceria (President and CEO of Axioma)
The basic "allocation" model considers the problem of choosing a subset of items that need to be bought or sold in order to maximize or minimize a given set of objectives. Typical objectives include minimizing total procurement costs, or maximizing total profit or quality. Requirements include satisfying demand and budget constraints, minimum and maximum quantity requirements, lot-sizes, etc. One of the latest manifestations of allocation problems is in the area of procurement. The recent interest in B2B electronic marketplaces for direct materials has sparked new research and development in the use optimization models for solving these problems. The basic problem is to determine how can a buyer in a B2B marketplace efficiently make procurement decisions when faced with many different product lines, hundreds of suppliers for each, supply contract constraints, volume discounts, transportation costs, due dates, tradeoffs between price and quality, etc. In this talk we will present the basic integer programming models that can be used for solving these problems. We will show that general integer programming models for allocation can be "specialized" to solving as diverse problems as direct procurement for marketplaces, campaign management for advertising, and bond trading in finance. We will discuss issues related to dealing with multiple objective functions and also describe solution methodologies.
Thu Feb 1, 12-01:00pm, E40-106

What Is Operations Research? What Is Management Science?
John Little, Stephen Graves
Wed Jan 10, Fri Jan 12, 10:30-11:30am, 2-105

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)

Do you enjoy mathematics and computers? Would you like to apply your skills to business, government, and non-profit institutions? Then come and learn about the fields of operations research and management science, a science for improving the decisions of organizations. These fields typically use data, mathematical models, and computer-based information systems. Intended for undergraduates and graduate students considering OR/MS as a field of study. The second session will be followed by a lunch in E40-106. Participants welcome at individual sessions but attendance at both sessions is encouraged.
Contact: Jeff Meldman, E40-165, x3-4932, jmeldman@mit.edu


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Listing generated: 31-Jan-2001