Shichun Hu, MSISE, Spring2016

On February 24, 2016, HEC Montréal professor Jean-François Cordeau presented his research, the Benders Decomposition for Production Routing Under Demand Uncertainty on the USC campus. Cordeau first introduced the background of production routing problems and followed with his research on how to use benders decomposition approach to solve the stochastic positive realization problem (PRP) in a more efficient way. This particular approach works in two-stage and multistage decision processes where distribution of the demand is assumed to be known. In the first stage, usually with integer variables, basic decisions such as production setup, customer visits and vehicle assignments are determined. Then in the second stage, further production, inventory and delivery decisions are made, after demand is known. Benders decomposition can be applied when first stage can be seen as a master problem with determined variable values and second stage (and many more in the multistage process) can be seen as the sub-problems. Combining with computational enhancements such as single branching tree, lower-bound lifting, scenario group cuts and Pareto-optimal cuts, the benders decomposition algorithm shall become much more effective. Professor Cordeau claimed that this approach, which has better performance in computing time and average optimality gap, will generate quicker and better results in decisions and minimizing costs of company operations.

Santiago Carvajal, first year ISE PhD student from Mexico, found “the methods introduced in this topic very interesting.” Master of Science, Civil Engineering, Transportation Engineering, Mingyang Hao, considered the problem to be helpful in “opening up my mind to how transportation is related to industry decisions.” Professor Julie Higle, ISE department chair actively exchanged ideas and insights with professor Cordeau during the one hour presentation.

Jean-François Cordeau

Professor

Department of Logistics and Operations Management

HEC Montréal

Jean-François Cordeau obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at the École Polytechnique de Montréal in 1999. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Logistics and Transportation. Since 2000, he has been responsible for the Master of Science in Global Supply Chain Management at HEC. He is a member of the Interuniversity Research Centre on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation (CIRRELT) and of the Group for Research in Decision Analysis (GERAD). He was Deputy Director of CIRRELT from 2008 to 2013. He has authored or coauthored more than 100 scientific articles in combinatorial optimization and mathematical decomposition, mostly in the fields of vehicle routing and logistics network design. He has also supervised more than 50 M.Sc. and Ph.D. students. He is an Associate Editor of IIE Transactions and Transportation Science, and a member of the Editorial Board of Computers & Operations Research. Dr. Cordeau has also acted as a consultant for several Canadian and European organizations in the private and public sectors. In 2009, he and three of his colleagues won First Prize in the ROADEF Challenge on Disruption Management for Commercial Aviation. Since 2014, he is a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada.

Shichun Hu

Shichun Hu is a student associate at METRANS Transportation Center.  She is a first year student in the Master of Industrial and Systems Engineering Program in the Viterbi School of Engineering, USC.  Her interests are urban logistics, supply chain and industrial engineering.  After graduation she hopes to pursue a career in transportation, specifically to improve the supply chain to enhance efficiency and access to goods.