Congratulations to ORSNZ conference prize winners

Kia ora koutou,

For those who were unable to attend the 2023 ORSNZ conference – please join me in congratulating the prize winners of the Young Practitioner Prize (YPP) and the JAG memorial prize for the best application of OR for improving lives.

YPP best paper award: Dominic Keehan – Multistage production planning and price modelling
YPP best presentation award: Mostafa Papen – Towards the development of a Virtual Safety Officer – Few-Shot-Learning prototype
JAG memorial prize: Shirekha Layangani – An Analysis of Oncology Drug Prescription Patterns using Hidden Markov Models

Andrew Mason was awarded the Hans Daellenbach Prize in 2022, and presented with the award after his 2023 ORSNZ plenary titled “From MacSimplex to OpenSolver: A 35 year Journey Applying Operations Research”.

Andrew Mason with Hans Daellenbach certificate and ORSNZ president Mike O'Sullivan.

All our prize winners are also listed on the ORSNZ Prizes page (here).

Ngā mihi,
Andrea (ORSNZ President)

JuMP – recent developments

Oscar Dowson, industry representative on the ORSNZ council, presented a summary of recent JuMP developments at the 2023 ORSNZ conference. Some of the highlights are support for multiobjective optimisation, nonlinear complimentarity and many other additions and improvement. For an overview of new and improved features, have a look at Oscar’s blog post JuMP: the year in review (2023).

If you haven’t tried JuMP yet – it’s a modelling language for mathematical optimisation in the Julia programming language. I highly recommend it for your next optimisation project. There are lots of good examples and tutorials to get you started (see here).

Energy futures: Hydrogen for New Zealand workshop 29/1/2024

We would like to draw your attention to the upcoming workshop Energy futures: Hydrogen for New Zealand to be held at the University of Canterbury on Monday 29/1/2024.

The ORSNZ Special Interest Group Energy and Natural Resources is supporting this event, with two members participating.

The workshop is free of charge, but please do register here. For those unable to attend in person, there is an option to participate in two of the sessions remotely.

Lecturer in Operational Research or Applied Mathematical modelling, University of Southampton

Please find below a lectureship opportunity in Operations Research (OR) or applied mathematical modelling within the School of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Southampton, England.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Applications are invited for a fixed-term Lectureship (Assistant Professor) in Operational Research or applied mathematical modelling to start on 1 October 2023 or as soon as possible afterwards, until 30 September 2025.

Location: Mathematical Sciences, University of Southampton
Salary: £38,205 to £42,978 Per annum
Full Time Fixed Term until 30 September 2025 Closing Date: Friday 11 August 2023
Interview Date: To be confirmed
Reference: 2385223PJ

The successful candidate will help us to deliver our taught programmes in Operational Research and Mathematics for Business or Applied Mathematics. The successful candidate should either have a PhD or be close to completing a PhD in Operational Research, Applied mathematics, or a related research area. They should also be able to demonstrate ability and experience of teaching mathematics at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

About us
The School of Mathematical Sciences has a strong record of providing an excellent learning and research environment. Our research portfolio spans statistics, operational research, pure mathematics, applied mathematics and theoretical physics. The University of Southampton is a member of the Alan Turing Institute, and a number of researchers from the School of Mathematical Sciences are Turing Fellows. The School of Mathematical Sciences hosts several research centres that collaborate widely across the University, including the Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute (S3RI) and the Centre for Operational Research, Management Science and Information Sciences (CORMSIS). Further information about Mathematics at Southampton can be found at http://www.soton.ac.uk/maths/

This is a full time (1.0 FTE) fixed term post tenable from 1 October 2023.

Potential applicants who wish to discuss this post are welcome to contact the Head of Operational Research, Professor Joerg Fliege ([email protected]).

Application Procedure:
The application deadline is midnight on the closing date stated above. If you need assistance, call Recruitment on +44 (0) 23 8059 2750, or email [email protected]. Quote reference 2385223PJ on all correspondence.

Meet the ORSNZ 2023 Council members

Kia ora koutou.

Our new Communications member of Council, Karl Zhu, has been gathering some brief profiles of your Council members. Here are the first eight:

Mike O’Sullivan – President: Dr Mike O’Sullivan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Science and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Auckland. His main research interests are the application of Operations Research to complex systems, in particular the formulation of optimisation and simulation models and the development of advanced techniques for solving these models. His research portfolio includes: improving health delivery services; modelling to inform government policy; building intelligent (computing and storage) clouds; conceptual modelling for simulation; developing innovative optimisation software; and simulating construction projects. He co-founded the Operations Research Union Analytics (ORUA) research group. He works with industrial partners and have either collaborated with and/or consulted for: The Ministry of Health, NZ; The Ministry of Social Development, NZ; Auckland, Waitemata, Counties Manukau, Waikato and Mid-Central District Health Boards, NZ; Steel and Tube, NZ; Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto, USA; ICS Consulting, UK; M & G Investments, London, UK; Intergen, NZ; OneNet, NZ; The Ministry of Education, NZ; and Hose Manufacturers Ltd, NZ. He is also a leader in the research sector as the Deputy Director of Te Pūnaha Matatini, the President of the Operations Research Society of New Zealand and the project lead for the Pandemic Resilience project within the Global Partnership for Artificial Intelligence.

Andrea Raith – Vice President: Dr Andrea Raith is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Engineering Science and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Auckland, which she joined in 2010. Her research areas include algorithms for biobjective and multiobjective optimisation problems, problem decomposition, and network optimisation. Andrea is particularly interested in applying Operations Research and multicriteria decision making in the context of transport modelling and optimisation, sustainable transport, airline optimisation, as well as applications in healthcare such as radiotherapy treatment planning. Andrea is a member of INFORMS, GOR, and the International Society on Multi-criteria Decision Making, and Vice-President of ORSNZ.

Tony Downward – Secretary: Dr Tony Downward is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Engineering Science and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Auckland, and also a member of the He is a member of the Electric Power Optimization Centre. His main research interests are electricity market modelling, stochastic optimization, decomposition methods and decision support systems.

Andy Philpott – APORS/IFORS Representative: Andy Philpott is Professor of Operations Research in the Department of Engineering Science, and Director of the Electric Power Optimization Centre (EPOC) at the University of Auckland. His research interests are in stochastic optimization and game theory and its application in electricity systems.  He is a past president of ORSNZ, and was awarded the Hans Daellenbach Award from ORSNZ in 2006. His other awards include Edelman laureate in 2009, INFORMS Fellow in 2017, and Simons Fellow in 2019. He has given plenary and keynote addresses to major international conferences including ICSP 2001, ICCOPT 2007, ICSP 2010, SIOPT 2014, CMS 2018, ISMP 2018, and the IFORS Distinguished Lecture in 2019. He was on the editorial board of Mathematical Programming from 2004-2017, and has been an Associate Editor of Operations Research since 2007.

Andrew Mason – Council: Andrew Mason is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Science, University of Auckland. Andrew has a BE with Honours from the University of Auckland and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. His research has a strong practical focus which includes developing and maintaining OpenSolver (http://opensolver.org) and SolverStudio (http://solverstudio.org), two packages that allow complex optimisation models to be built and solved within Excel. Andrew has held multiple roles in the ORSNZ, including Treasurer, Webmaster, Vice President and President. He co-founded The Optima Corporation which delivers ambulance simulation software to clients around the world. He is actively involved in the NZ Data Science + Analytics Forum (http://analytics.org.nz), and has acted as a consultant for organisations such as Stats NZ, Ecrotek, Scarlatti and NZ Customs. Andrew was awarded the ORSNZ Hans Daellenbach Prize in 2022.

Sarah Marshall – Council: Dr Sarah Marshall is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Auckland University of Technology (AUT). Sarah joined AUT in February 2014. Sarah completed her undergraduate studies in Economics, Psychology and Operations Research at Victoria University of Wellington. After graduating, she worked in the Australian stockbroking industry before returning to New Zealand to complete a Master of Science in Statistics and Operations Research at Victoria University of Wellington. Sarah completed her PhD in Management Science on the application of deterministic and stochastic models to product recovery systems at the University of Edinburgh in 2012. Her current research focuses on the use of geometric-like processes to warranty claims for repairable systems.

Karl Zhu – Council (Communications): Karl Zhu is a PhD student in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Auckland. Karl completed his Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) degree in Engineering Science from the same university in 2021. His PhD project is currently focusing on solving a large collective entity resolution problem with machine learning and optimisation models.

Paul Rouse – Auckland Region Contact: Dr Paul Rouse is a Professor of Management Accounting at The University of Auckland. His research areas include performance and productivity measurement (with a focus on Data Envelopment Analysis), revenue and cost management, cost-benefit and evaluation methods. Application areas include health, banking, and highway and aircraft maintenance. He is a member of CAANZ and the Operations Research Society of New Zealand.

Grant Read – Christchurch Region Contact: Dr Grant Read is a former ORSNZ president and Daellenbach award recipient, who has been closely involved with the electricity sector for over 40 years, both as a researcher and a consultant. He developed the operational and planning models used by both the Ministry of Energy and ECNZ, and was responsible for electricity sector planning in the Ministry’s Planning Division. He then joined the Operations Research/Management Science Department at Canterbury University. There, he founded the Energy Modelling Research Group, focused on the theory and practice of optimisation-based electricity markets, and played a major role in designing electricity and gas markets for several countries, introducing innovations that have since been widely adopted. For the last 20 years he has been a semi-retired Adjunct Professor with broader interests, including the application of similar concepts to improve management of water, and water related environmental impacts.

Noho ora mai, Mike (ORSNZ President)

Deadline approaching for abstract submissions for ORSNZ Conference

The final deadline for abstracts for the upcoming ORSNZ conference is Monday 7 November. We welcome presentations on any aspect of operations research, analytics or management science, especially practical applications.

You can find the details about how to submit, here.

Note that we have prizes for students, including prizes for papers and presentations. You can find the eligibility criteria and submission details, here.

This year the YPP will be jointly sponsored by Optimity and Supply Chain Company.

ORSNZ Conference 2019 Recap & Prize Winners

This year’s ORSNZ conference was the first time we haven’t partnered with NZSA since 2012. Across the two days we had 56 people who attended, and 28 presentations. You can see the abstracts for all the presentations here.

There was also an Analytics Forum event on Well-being Analytics aligned with the first-day on the conference, attended by about 150 people.

The OSHA and ENR SIGs each hosted sessions at the conference, which helped to attract people from industry to a day or session of the conference.

YPP Prize Winners

Sponsored by Suez Smart Solutions

Best Paper: Comparison of objective functions for scheduling surgeries. Thomas Adams, Michael O’Sullivan & Cameron Walker. Engineering Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Best Presentation: Universal locker systems for urban metros. Parameshwaran Iyer, Ronald Veldman & Yao Zhang.

Highly Commended: The optimisation of milk collection. Snigdha Saha & Olivier Graffeuille.

JAG Prize Winners

Sponsored by Optimity

Winner: Developing a decision making tool for Housing New Zealand. Hrishi Kodthuguli, Michael O’Sullivan & Cameron Walker.

Highly Commended: Who will be covered and who will be left behind? Advising the Norwegian Air Ambulance Foundation on fairness. Maaike Vollebergh, Caroline Jagtenberg & Jo Røislien.

In Memoriam: Shabbir Ahmed

ORSNZ is saddened to share that Shabbir Ahmed,  Anderson-Interface Chair and Professor of the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, passed away on June 19th, 2019.

A tribute by Alejandro Toriello has been published on the INFORMS Open Forum

Reflections from ORSNZ Members

I had the pleasure of visiting Shabbir at Georgia tech during a visit in the course of my PhD. Shabbir was very unassuming. He was easy to talk to about topics within our research, and also outside of research including his hobby of music. From just a short visit and several email exchanges, it was rather surprising to me to learn that someone with Shabbir’s standing could be so honest, approachable and easy-going. Our community has lost a great researcher but also a passionate teacher and mentor.
Regan Baucke

I was very sad to hear that Shabbir Ahmed died on June 19 after battling cancer for the past 10 months. Shabbir was not only a brilliant researcher but a colleague and good friend. He was the external examiner to our Engineering Science PhD student Oscar Dowson last year, and I examined Jikai Zou, one of his recent PhD students. I met Shabbir in 2004 and had stayed in touch with him through our work together in the Committee on Stochastic Programming (COSP). Shabbir was an active participant in this committee, writing a tutorial for the website on stochastic integer programming, and also designing and drawing COSP’s logo (see the home page of https://stoprog.org/).  It was quite clear from early on that Shabbir was going to be a star in the mathematical programming community. Last year he won the INFORMS Optimization Society Farkas Prize, awarded each year to the world’s top mid-career optimization researcher. It seemed as if this was another milestone on a career that would continue to reach even greater heights. Alas that was not to be. We received some heartening news in February that his cancer was responding to treatment, but then the shocking news in June that he had died. He will be missed by many.
Andy Philpott     

                    

PhD scholarship at UNSW

As part of strategic investments to tackle global grand challenges, a new PhD Scholarship opportunity at UNSW Sydney focuses on identifying transformative policies to improve societal well-being. A central component of this complex systems research project involves building a systems model of the evolution of social, economic and environmental capital stocks in response to business and public policies (e.g. land development, population growth, infrastructure spending, science and technology investment). 

The scholarship includes a stipend of $41,200 per year for 4 years, up to $10,000 per year to support the successful candidate’s career development, and covers all tuition fees. The supervisory team includes faculty members from both the social sciences and natural sciences.

Interested candidates should complete an expression of interest by July 12, 2019 using this link: http://bit.ly/ScientiaEOI

For a one-page overview of the research project click this link: http://bit.ly/UNSWSydneyPhD