Originally scheduled to take place on 19-20 March at Zuse Institute Berlin, Germany, the third meeting of the EURO Working Group on the Practice of OR was postponed to September due to the COVID pandemic. It has finally been held as an online meeting, hosted by ZIB and FICO, restructured as two half day sessions on the 28th and 29th September followed by a series of one hour webinars every Monday from the 5th October to 2nd November.
Making this meeting a virtual event was an opportunity for attendees from further afield. The total registration for the event was 356 with peak numbers on the first day of 175 and 126 on the second day. Accounting for people dipping in and out, we estimate over 200 attendees for the first two days. The sessions on the 28th and 29th September comprised keynote talks and parallel discussion groups, with each day ending with a social event. The webinar series had two contributed talks in each session. All of the talks gave fascinating insights into the successes and challenges faced when deploying OR projects. Although possibilities for interaction with speakers and other attendees were obviously more limited compared with physical meetings all talks gave rise to a number of comments and questions from participants showing a lively interest in the presented topics.
Links to recordings
Links to PDFs
Keynote talks
A. Zymolka (Qontigo): Optimization in Finance – Practice and Challenges
C. Silvester (Uniper): Delivering OR Solutions for Everyday Operations in Energy Trading
R. Werner (Open Grid Europe): Operations Research supporting Germany’s energy transition
B. Sal (DPDHL Group): Putting Operations Research into Operations in Deutsche Post DHL Group
S. Klosterhalfen (BASF): Successful value chain optimization at a chemical company
Discussion groups summaries
Topic 1: Change management issues in practical projects
Topic 2: Promotion of OR
Topic 3: Stating requirements and project specifications
Topic 4: Relationship/collaboration between academia and industry
Webinar talks
- 5 October, 2020
M. Pozzi (Optit): When the “world of ideas” meets the ground: Stories of applied Operations Research (and Machine Learning) in real life
S. Griffioen (Netherlands Railways): Optimizing seating probability in passenger trains - 12 October, 2020
E. Cakici (IBM): ÇIMSA End-to-End Sales and Operations Planning
M. de With (OrTec): Creating an employee planning application that can be trusted - 19 October, 2020
M. Günther (Stadtwerke München): Implementation and Operation of a Gas Market Model at Stadtwerke München (PDF: please contact the author: [email protected])
G. Ayres de Castro (SAP): A Framework for Extending SAP IBP’s Optimization Capabilities with FICO Xpress - 26 October, 2020
M. Moullin (Public Sector Scorecard Research Unit): From snow ploughs to child obesity – Overcoming challenges in the deployment of OR projects in the public sector
M. Brandeau (Standford University): Analytical Projects at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford: Successes, failures, and opportunities - 2 November, 2020
Z. Balaporia (FICO): Conquering the ‘Last Mile’ and ‘Extra Mile’ of Implementing Optimization Projects
T. Schlechte (LBW Optimization): Trust is good, optimal control tours are better!
