Operations Research & System Optimization Research Group
Optimization, decision-making, and mathematical modeling to improve efficiency in production, logistics, and supply chains.
This group works behind the scenes of an organization's hardest operating decisions: what to produce, when, on which machine, along which route, or how much inventory to hold. These questions sound simple but carry an enormous number of possible answers — so the group turns to mathematical optimization and simulation to find the best one under real-world constraints.
Research spans foundational theory — automated storage and retrieval system design, stochastic search procedures for optimization via simulation, and queueing models for service systems — through to direct application: routing for cash-delivery trucks, simulation of hospital outpatient clinics to cut waiting times, disaster-relief logistics planning, and production scheduling across a wide range of manufacturing settings.
As the department's largest research group, its expertise reaches into nearly every industry — automotive manufacturing, frozen food, healthcare services — making it the group most often called on when an organization needs a systematic overhaul of how it operates.