Dr. Sıla Çetinkaya to present Seminar

Dr. Sıla Çetinkaya from Southern Methodist University will present at the Seminar Monday November 27 at 1:15pm in Room 114 of the W. A. Baker Chemistry Research Building (CRB).  Dr. Çetinkaya’s presentation title, abstract, and biographical sketch are below.

Title:  On the Integration of Inbound Replenishment and Outbound Transportation Decisions: Premises, Models, and Dynamic Optimization

 

Author: Sıla Çetinkaya

Location: W. A. Baker Chemistry Research Building (CRB) Room 114

Date: Monday, November 27

Time: 1:15pm – 2:15pm

Abstract:   We consider a joint stock replenishment and shipment scheduling problem applicable under a vendor-managed inventory (VMI) contract where the vendor has flexibility over the timing and quantity of resupply at a group of retailers located in a given geographical region. The retailers face stochastic demands. Under the VMI contract of interest, employing a temporal shipment consolidation strategy allows the vendor to hold smaller orders from the retailers and to release them in a combined shipment to realize transportation scale economies. Although the general class of problems of interest has been investigated using renewal theory in the previous literature, computation of exact optimal policies has remained an open problem for over fifteen years. We formulate the problem via a stochastic dynamic programming approach. We examine the optimal joint policy specifying the vendor’s inbound replenishment and outbound dispatch quantities in successive periods so that transportation economies of scale due to shipment consolidation are realized without excessive inventory holding and/or order delay. We characterize the structure of the optimal policy as a zoned, state-dependent threshold policy that falls in a new class of policies in stochastic inventory control theory. The results extend the existing theory and concepts of generalized convexity while also generalizing Scarf’s seminal work on the notion of K-convexity and optimality of (s,S) policies.

Biographical Sketch: Sila Çetinkaya is Chair and Professor of EMIS in the SMU Lyle School of Engineering. She holds courtesy appointments with ITOM in the SMU Cox School of Business and with Internal Medicine in the UT Southwestern Medical Center. She also serves as Senior Fellow in the SMU Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity. She joined SMU in 2014 from TAMU—after 17 years of service—where she was Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering. She obtained her Ph.D. in Management Science and Systems in 1996 from McMaster University in Canada. She received an MS in Industrial Engineering in 1991 from Bilkent University and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering in 1989 from Istanbul Technical University in Turkey. Dr. Çetinkaya’s research interests include supply chain and healthcare operations, stochastic optimal control theory, and applied probability. Her publications appeared in reputable outlets of industrial engineering and management science including Operations Research, Management Science, Interfaces, Production and Operations Management, IISE Transactions, and Naval Research Logistics, among others. Her research and teaching activities have been funded by multiple government and industry grants. Her early career accomplishments were recognized by NSF CAREER Award in 2001 and IISE Outstanding Young Industrial Engineer Award in 2003. Çetinkaya was named IISE Fellow in 2012 for professional leadership and outstanding contributions to industrial engineering. She is a department editor of IISE Transactions and an associate editor of Naval Research Logistics.

 

-Posted by Jay Rosenberger

Gloria Bender to present Seminar

Gloria Bender will present at the Seminar Monday November 13 at 1:15pm in Room 114 of the W. A. Baker Chemistry Research Building (CRB). Ms. Bender’s presentation title, abstract, and biographical sketch are below.

Title: Decision Support in the Real World:  QED Never Is! 
Author: Gloria Bender
Location: W. A. Baker Chemistry Research Building (CRB) Room 114
Date: Monday, November 13
Time: 1:15pm – 2:15pm

Abstract:  Advanced analytics, stochastic modeling, operations research tools are all very powerful and can provide elegant solutions to complex problems.  However, many of the problems working IEs face involve getting good data for use in our models to  produce elegant solutions. And, once we have our elegant solution, how do we promote the value to skeptical decision makers. Ms. Bender will discuss some of these challenges and how her consulting company addresses them.  She will look forward to an open discussion of potential ways IE’s can leverage new technologies to address these practical problems.

Biographical Sketch: Ms. Bender is an industrial engineer with over 30 years of experience in operations and facility capacity analyses, conceptual design, and expansion planning. She is co-founder and co-owner of TransSolutions, a 25-person transportation and aviation consulting firm based in Fort Worth, with offices in Washington DC and Atlanta. She is responsible for establishment of TransSolutions’ landside planning consulting practice, including development of processes, protocols and systems to serve passengers, their ground transportation vehicles, and their luggage in their journey through airports.  She championed development of the Operational Excellence Consulting practice in 2009, using TransSolutions’ strong advanced analytics and modeling capabilities coupled with the principals of Lean to improve the effectiveness of various enterprises worldwide. Ms. Bender currently serves most projects as the Principal-in-charge (PIC), responsible for overall project quality and client satisfaction, and she occasionally serves projects as the working project manager. In addition to her work at hundreds of airports worldwide, her projects also include supporting the redevelopment of the New York World Trade Center, estimating viewership for CNN Airport Network, and recommending enhancements to the computerized maintenance management system used by the US Navy. Ms. Bender actively supports the Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP), a program funded through the FAA and administered by the Transportation Research Board.  She has served as a research panel chair, a research contributor on four projects, and was the Principal Investigator for Report 55: Passenger Level of Service and Spatial Planning for Airport Terminals.  In January 2016, Ms. Bender was appointed by the Secretary of the Department of Transportation to serve on the ACRP Oversight Committee. Ms. Bender holds both an M.S. and B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington. She is a Fellow in the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, a Member of the Council of Industrial and Systems Engineers, former Chair of the Airports Council International – North American World Business Partners Board and lectures at the UC Berkeley Airport Planning Conference. Since 2013, Ms. Bender has also been a member of the Transportation Security Administration Planning Guidelines and Planning Standards (PGDS) Industry Working Group (IWG).

 

-Posted by Jay Rosenberger