The 58th annual Operations Research Society of New Zealand (ORSNZ) workshop will be held Thursday 19th and Friday 20th November 2026 at the University of Auckland’s city campus.

Purpose

The purpose of ORSNZ is to bring together academic and industrial practitioners of Operations Research and Management Science in New Zealand.

Abstract submission

We welcome presentations on any aspect of operations research, analytics or management science, especially practical applications.

Submit an abstract.

Submissions from students and practitioners are greatly encouraged. Abstracts should be 250 words or fewer and are to be submitted as plain text.

Presentations will be 20 minutes in length (15 + 5 for questions). All abstracts will be considered by the conference committee, and the authors notified of their acceptance (or otherwise).

Submission deadline for abstracts: Tuesday 27 October 2026
Submission deadline for papers: 8 November, 2026

Registration

Early-bird prices run until 31 October.

Students who are presenting at the conference and who are (or have been) studying full-time during this calendar year are eligible for student registration rates. Students must email conference at orsnz.org.nz, cc’ing their academic supervisor at their institution, to confirm their student status.

Gurobi Community Event

On Thursday 19th, ORSNZ is co-located with the Gurobi Community Event, and we will hold a joint networking dinner. More details to come.

Programme

The programme is subject to change at any time.

The full book of abstracts is available here. It also contains the programme on pages 3-4.

Time	Thursday 19th
08:30	Registration
09:00	Welcome
09:20	Talks Healthcare Chair: Cameron Walker 1. Mohsen Abdoli (University of Auckland): Multi-Objective Scheduling and Routing for Preventive Home Healthcare Services for Geriatric Patients (YPP, JAG) 2. Lisa Aoki Hillas (University of Auckland): Prediction Versus Waiting as a Screening Device (JAG) 3. Signý Kristín Sigurjónsdóttir (University of Iceland): Revealed-Practice Scheduling: A Historically Grounded Optimization Approach for Operating Room Planning (JAG)
10:20	Morning Tea
10:40	Talks Energy Chair: Andy Philpott 1. Madison L. Zegeer (University of Canterbury): Bridging stochastic hydro-scheduling and deterministic capacity expansion models (YPP) 2. Alexandre Fargier (University of Auckland): Optimising BESS energy arbitrage in the NZEM (YPP) 3. Ali Kök (TU Wien): Staged capacity expansion with long-term hydro storage using cyclic SDDP policy graphs (YPP, JAG) 4. Asta Susan Rustad (Technical University of Denmark): Integrated Wind Farm Layout and Cable Routing: Upper Bounds and Algorithms (YPP, JAG)
12:00	Lunch
13:00	Talks Chair: Lisa Aoki Hillas 1. Yajun Shi (Auckland University of Technology): Asymptotic analysis of infinite-server queues driven by a Cox-BESQ process (YPP) 2. Harry Newrick & Chris Oliver (University of Auckland): A Faster Algorithm For Multi-Criteria Betweenness (YPP) 3. Ahmed Abdelhadi (University of Auckland): Bustrify: A simulation and analysis package for public transport electrification (YPP, JAG)
14:00	Short break
14:10	Talks Transport, logistics and energy Chair: Sarah Marshall 1. Jiaying Gu (University of Canterbury): Data-driven robust optimization for resilient transportation network planning under landslide uncertainty (YPP) 2. Hannah Liu (University of Auckland): Delivery performance of platform-owned and marketplace products in a platform-operated logistics network (JAG) 3. Hanqing Wang (Beijing Jiaotong University): Planning of Centralised-Charging Battery Swapping Networks with Dynamic Service Availability 4. Andy Philpott (University of Auckland): Power, Prices and Profits in Energy-Only Wholesale Electricity Markets
15:30	Afternoon Tea
16:00	Gurobi Community Event 1. Michael O’Sullivan (University of Auckland): Optimisation in practice: water resource management planning 2. Hamideh Anjomshoa (Gurobi): Gurobi Intelligence: GenAI in Gurobi 3. Simon Bowly (Gurobi): What’s new at Gurobi: Gurobi 14.0
17:30	Conference Dinner at The Brit Pub & Eatery 122 Quay St.

Time	Friday 20th
09:00	Talks Chair: Michael O’Sullivan 1. Ava Purvis & Samriddhi Jaiswal (University of Auckland): Optimising Computational Performance of Mixed Integer Programming Models 2. Maz Lakadia (Evolve DS): Autonomous Orchestration of Third-Party Optimisation Engines 3. Yuan Tian (Victoria University of Wellington): Learning and Transferring Scheduling Heuristics through Genetic Programming for Dynamic Multi-Mode Projects 4. Simon Bowly (Gurobi): Recent developments in solving large linear programs
10:20	Morning Tea
10:40	Talks Chair: Andrea Raith 1. Ehsan Mahmoodi (University of Auckland): Who keeps the lights on? A two-stage stochastic model of field-workforce design for electricity network resilience in Auckland 2. Jack Yarndley (University of Auckland): Continuous Representations of Pareto Fronts via High-Order KKT Expansions 3. Lewis Azzopardi (University of Auckland): Column Generation Algorithm for Parallel Task Scheduling with Communication Delays 4. Andrew Mason (University of Auckland): Experiments with Neighbourhood Pricing to speed up Column Generation
12:00 12:20	Lunch ORSNZ Annual General Meeting
13:00	Invited talk Chair: Andrew Mason Jip J. Dekker (Monash University): Say What, Not How: Constraint Modelling with MiniZinc
14:00	Afternoon Tea
14:20	Talks Chair: David Robb 1. Yale T. Herer (Technion – Israel Institute of Technology): Spare Parts Inventory Management Utilizing Live Machine Health Data: A Digital Twin Approach 2. Paul Rouse (University of Auckland): Benefit of the Doubt Models: Input Minimisation, Zero-Valued Measures and Weight Robustness
15:00	Prize Giving and Closing

Location

The workshop will take place at the University of Auckland at the Science Centre (which is building 302), 23 Symonds Street. We will be in room G20 on the ground floor.

Dinner venue: The Brit Pub & Eatery

Parking: Parking is available in the Sir Owen G. Glenn Building

Public Transport: The University of Auckland is well connected to main public transport routes. Further information is available from Auckland Transport.

Accommodation: Attendees are responsible for finding and booking their own accommodation. There are many options within walking distance.

Prizes

ORSNZ Young Practitioners’ Prize (YPP)

The YPP prize is supported by WePlan

OR practitioners and students who are within 5 years of graduation on the first day of the conference (19 November 2026) are invited to compete for $1000 of prizes in the ORSNZ Young Practitioners’ Prize competition. There will be two prize categories: paper and presentation.

Entrants must abide by the YPP Prize rules.
YPP papers and presentations can be co-authored as long as the main author has YPP status. Multiple authors with YPP status can enter their paper jointly.
Papers should be a maximum of 10 pages (not including references), and must be submitted to [email protected] by the stated deadline. Refer to the paper guidelines in Word or LaTeX.
No award will be made if there are no suitable entries.

John A. George Memorial Prize (JAG)

The JAG prize is supported by MoreOptimal

Conference delegates may also optionally have their presentations considered for the JAG prize. This prize is awarded annually for the best application of OR for improving lives. Entries are particularly sought in areas such as health, education, social welfare, economic development, or environmental protection, but may be in any application area.

When submitting their abstract for the conference, delegates should indicate that they wish to be considered for the JAG prize, and should explain how their work could contribute to improving the quality of people’s lives (immediately, or in the future), particularly those who may otherwise be vulnerable or disadvantaged.