Michael O’Sullivan – Operations Research Society of New Zealand

Advert for Funded PhD Studentship at Lancaster University

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Congratulations to ORSNZ conference prize winners

Kia ora koutou,

For those who were unable to attend the 2023 ORSNZ conference – please join me in congratulating the prize winners of the Young Practitioner Prize (YPP) and the JAG memorial prize for the best application of OR for improving lives.

YPP best paper award: Dominic Keehan – Multistage production planning and price modelling
YPP best presentation award: Mostafa Papen – Towards the development of a Virtual Safety Officer – Few-Shot-Learning prototype
JAG memorial prize: Shirekha Layangani – An Analysis of Oncology Drug Prescription Patterns using Hidden Markov Models

Andrew Mason was awarded the Hans Daellenbach Prize in 2022, and presented with the award after his 2023 ORSNZ plenary titled “From MacSimplex to OpenSolver: A 35 year Journey Applying Operations Research”.

Andrew Mason with Hans Daellenbach certificate and ORSNZ president Mike O'Sullivan.

All our prize winners are also listed on the ORSNZ Prizes page (here).

Ngā mihi,
Andrea (ORSNZ President)

JuMP – recent developments

Oscar Dowson, industry representative on the ORSNZ council, presented a summary of recent JuMP developments at the 2023 ORSNZ conference. Some of the highlights are support for multiobjective optimisation, nonlinear complimentarity and many other additions and improvement. For an overview of new and improved features, have a look at Oscar’s blog post JuMP: the year in review (2023).

If you haven’t tried JuMP yet – it’s a modelling language for mathematical optimisation in the Julia programming language. I highly recommend it for your next optimisation project. There are lots of good examples and tutorials to get you started (see here).

Energy futures: Hydrogen for New Zealand workshop 29/1/2024

We would like to draw your attention to the upcoming workshop Energy futures: Hydrogen for New Zealand to be held at the University of Canterbury on Monday 29/1/2024.

The ORSNZ Special Interest Group Energy and Natural Resources is supporting this event, with two members participating.

The workshop is free of charge, but please do register here. For those unable to attend in person, there is an option to participate in two of the sessions remotely.

Join the Scaling RAI Solutions 2023 Challenge

Dear ORSNZ,

I am an expert member of the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI). I am now actively involved in a program titled “Scaling RAI solutions.” This project aims at providing opportunities to deploy and scale Responsible AI solutions, showcasing results, encouraging cross-functional collaboration, and helping adopt performance metrics. Our intention is to contribute to tangible outcomes that can help operationalize the RAI framework within GPAI and beyond.

We just launched a call for participation addressed to organizations/AI initiatives that are facing challenges in either scaling or in implementing responsible AI. Upon selection, teams will be provided with mentorship and guidance from GPAI expertise and support to help with reaching sustainable deployment of such AI solutions over a period of three months (June 2023 to August 2023). Teams interested in this program can apply and find more information on our application platform. The application period closes on May 27, 2023, giving teams one month to submit their applications.

We would like to know more about your current projects and explore your potential interest in the Scaling RAI Solutions 2023 program. If you and your team are interested in applying to our Scaling RAI Solutions 2023 Challenge, please visit our website for more information and to fill out an application. Additionally, as we continue to build the community around this initiative, we are welcoming assistance with outreach efforts. If you know of any teams that may be interested in this opportunity, we encourage you to spread the word and share our call for participation. We would greatly appreciate your support.

You can also find out initiative on social media:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CEIMIA_mtl/status/1653041925799260163
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7058807287800328192

Let me know if you are interested in continuing this discussion. I would be pleased to arrange a call to delve deeper into the matter. We are hosting two webinars in May aimed at presenting this initiative and addressing any queries you may have.

Ngā manaakitanga,
Mike O’Sullivan on behalf of the Scaling RAI Solutions 2023 Project team

Meet the ORSNZ 2023 Council members

Kia ora koutou.

Our new Communications member of Council, Karl Zhu, has been gathering some brief profiles of your Council members. Here are the first eight:

Mike O’Sullivan – President: Dr Mike O’Sullivan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Science and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Auckland. His main research interests are the application of Operations Research to complex systems, in particular the formulation of optimisation and simulation models and the development of advanced techniques for solving these models. His research portfolio includes: improving health delivery services; modelling to inform government policy; building intelligent (computing and storage) clouds; conceptual modelling for simulation; developing innovative optimisation software; and simulating construction projects. He co-founded the Operations Research Union Analytics (ORUA) research group. He works with industrial partners and have either collaborated with and/or consulted for: The Ministry of Health, NZ; The Ministry of Social Development, NZ; Auckland, Waitemata, Counties Manukau, Waikato and Mid-Central District Health Boards, NZ; Steel and Tube, NZ; Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto, USA; ICS Consulting, UK; M & G Investments, London, UK; Intergen, NZ; OneNet, NZ; The Ministry of Education, NZ; and Hose Manufacturers Ltd, NZ. He is also a leader in the research sector as the Deputy Director of Te Pūnaha Matatini, the President of the Operations Research Society of New Zealand and the project lead for the Pandemic Resilience project within the Global Partnership for Artificial Intelligence.

Andrea Raith – Vice President: Dr Andrea Raith is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Engineering Science and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Auckland, which she joined in 2010. Her research areas include algorithms for biobjective and multiobjective optimisation problems, problem decomposition, and network optimisation. Andrea is particularly interested in applying Operations Research and multicriteria decision making in the context of transport modelling and optimisation, sustainable transport, airline optimisation, as well as applications in healthcare such as radiotherapy treatment planning. Andrea is a member of INFORMS, GOR, and the International Society on Multi-criteria Decision Making, and Vice-President of ORSNZ.

Tony Downward – Secretary: Dr Tony Downward is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Engineering Science and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Auckland, and also a member of the He is a member of the Electric Power Optimization Centre. His main research interests are electricity market modelling, stochastic optimization, decomposition methods and decision support systems.

Andy Philpott – APORS/IFORS Representative: Andy Philpott is Professor of Operations Research in the Department of Engineering Science, and Director of the Electric Power Optimization Centre (EPOC) at the University of Auckland. His research interests are in stochastic optimization and game theory and its application in electricity systems. He is a past president of ORSNZ, and was awarded the Hans Daellenbach Award from ORSNZ in 2006. His other awards include Edelman laureate in 2009, INFORMS Fellow in 2017, and Simons Fellow in 2019. He has given plenary and keynote addresses to major international conferences including ICSP 2001, ICCOPT 2007, ICSP 2010, SIOPT 2014, CMS 2018, ISMP 2018, and the IFORS Distinguished Lecture in 2019. He was on the editorial board of Mathematical Programming from 2004-2017, and has been an Associate Editor of Operations Research since 2007.

Andrew Mason – Council: Andrew Mason is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Science, University of Auckland. Andrew has a BE with Honours from the University of Auckland and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. His research has a strong practical focus which includes developing and maintaining OpenSolver (http://opensolver.org) and SolverStudio (http://solverstudio.org), two packages that allow complex optimisation models to be built and solved within Excel. Andrew has held multiple roles in the ORSNZ, including Treasurer, Webmaster, Vice President and President. He co-founded The Optima Corporation which delivers ambulance simulation software to clients around the world. He is actively involved in the NZ Data Science + Analytics Forum (http://analytics.org.nz), and has acted as a consultant for organisations such as Stats NZ, Ecrotek, Scarlatti and NZ Customs. Andrew was awarded the ORSNZ Hans Daellenbach Prize in 2022.

Sarah Marshall – Council: Dr Sarah Marshall is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Auckland University of Technology (AUT). Sarah joined AUT in February 2014. Sarah completed her undergraduate studies in Economics, Psychology and Operations Research at Victoria University of Wellington. After graduating, she worked in the Australian stockbroking industry before returning to New Zealand to complete a Master of Science in Statistics and Operations Research at Victoria University of Wellington. Sarah completed her PhD in Management Science on the application of deterministic and stochastic models to product recovery systems at the University of Edinburgh in 2012. Her current research focuses on the use of geometric-like processes to warranty claims for repairable systems.

Karl Zhu – Council (Communications): Karl Zhu is a PhD student in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Auckland. Karl completed his Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) degree in Engineering Science from the same university in 2021. His PhD project is currently focusing on solving a large collective entity resolution problem with machine learning and optimisation models.

Paul Rouse – Auckland Region Contact: Dr Paul Rouse is a Professor of Management Accounting at The University of Auckland. His research areas include performance and productivity measurement (with a focus on Data Envelopment Analysis), revenue and cost management, cost-benefit and evaluation methods. Application areas include health, banking, and highway and aircraft maintenance. He is a member of CAANZ and the Operations Research Society of New Zealand.

Grant Read – Christchurch Region Contact: Dr Grant Read is a former ORSNZ president and Daellenbach award recipient, who has been closely involved with the electricity sector for over 40 years, both as a researcher and a consultant. He developed the operational and planning models used by both the Ministry of Energy and ECNZ, and was responsible for electricity sector planning in the Ministry’s Planning Division. He then joined the Operations Research/Management Science Department at Canterbury University. There, he founded the Energy Modelling Research Group, focused on the theory and practice of optimisation-based electricity markets, and played a major role in designing electricity and gas markets for several countries, introducing innovations that have since been widely adopted. For the last 20 years he has been a semi-retired Adjunct Professor with broader interests, including the application of similar concepts to improve management of water, and water related environmental impacts.

Noho ora mai, Mike (ORSNZ President)

ORSNZ Annual Conference

Kia ora koutou!

November 28 & 29 saw the return of the ORSNZ Annual Conference, very well organised by Tony Downward (ORSNZ Secretary) and Tom Adams (ORSNZ Treasurer). It was very nice to see people kanohe ki te kanohe (eye to eye), both those I know and those I met at the conference.

The conference began with a ½ day Healthcare Modelling cluster organised by the ORSNZ SIG on Healthcare Analytics (OSHA) with talks bookended by an excellent plenary address by Dr Melanie Reuter-Oppermann and a discussion panel with experts from academia and industry (Melanie, Ms Pieta Brown, Dr Isaac Cleland, Dr Tom Adams, Assoc Prof Ilze Ziedins, Assoc Prof Cameron Walker).

The sessions that followed included talks by both young and experienced practitioners covering topics from finding missing people with integer programming to teaching the next generation of OR students.

There were two prize highlights during the conference. First, Associate Professor Andrew Mason was awarded the Hans Daellenbach Prize, the ORSNZ prize awarded for a body of work in OR/MS that combines strong innovative methodology with a practical impact which has made a significant contribution and received international recognition. Second, the Young Practitioners’ Prize – sponsored by Optimity and the Supply Chain Company – was awarded for presentations and papers as follows:

Paper
- 1st place: Christina Lin – Modelling housing feature impacts on sale price in newly developed suburbs relative to a standard house. (Department of Engineering Science and Biomedical Engineering, University of Auckland)
- 2nd place: Dominic Keehan – Certainty equivalent model predictive control and distributionally robust stochastic dynamic programming. (Department of Engineering Science and Biomedical Engineering, University of Auckland)
Presentation
- 1st place: Karl Zhu – Finding the missing with integer programming. (Department of Engineering Science and Biomedical Engineering, University of Auckland)
- 2nd place: Uwe Langenmayr – Calculation of synthetic energy carrier production costs with high temporal and geographical resolution. (Institute for Industrial Production, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)

The AGM saw the addition of one of the YPP people, Karl Zhu, in the Communications role. Your ORSNZ Council is as follows:

President Mike O’Sullivan presidentATTHEorsnz.org.nz		Vice President Andrea Raith vicepresidentATTHEorsnz.org.nz
Secretary Tony Downward secretaryATTHEorsnz.org.nz	Treasurer Tom Adams treasurerATTHEorsnz.org.nz	Council (APORS/IFORS Representative) Andy Philpott liaisonATTHEorsnz.org.nz	Council (Communications) Karl Zhu communicationsATTHEorsnz.org.nz
Council (Industry Representative) Cam Bradley	Council Sarah Marshall	Council (WebMaster) Andrew Mason webmasterATTHEorsnz.org.nz
Auckland Region Contact aucklandATTHEorsnz.org.nz Paul Rouse	Christchurch Region Contact christchurchATTHEorsnz.org.nz Grant Read	Wellington Region Contact wellingtonATTHEorsnz.org.nz Robyn Moore / Yi Mei	Waikato/Bay of Plenty Contact waikatoATTHEorsnz.org.nz

One of Karl’s first tasks might be introducing you to your Council members.

One of my colleagues remarked that this year’s conference was one of the best ORSNZ conferences he had been to. Ngā mihi nui to those who could attend the conference this year and a special thanks to those that presented. Ngā mihi to Optimity and the Supply Chain Company for sponsoring the YPP. I hope to see you some time soon at an ORSNZ event.

Noho ora mai, Mike (ORSNZ President)

ORSNZ AGM 2022 Agenda

The 2022 ORSNZ Annual General Meeting will be held at the upcoming 54th ORSNZ Conference on Monday 28 November starting at 1:40pm.

The preliminary agenda for the meeting is:

Apologies (to secretary@orsnz.org.nz);
Minutes of the previous AGM;
Matters arising from the minutes;
President’s report;
Honorary Treasurer’s report and financial statements;
Updates from regional and special interest groups;
Hans Daellenbach Prize (see details below);
Future Conferences;
Election of officers and auditor;
Other business.

You can assign a proxy to vote on your behalf using the 2nd page of this form; this should be sent to secretary@orsnz.org.nz.

Item 7:

ORSNZ has established an awards committee to make recommendations with respect to the award of the HGD prize, that will:

Stand ready to receive, and where necessary solicit, suggestions with respect to suitable recipients.
Maintain an ordered list of potential recipients, considering the alignment between their achievements and the prize criteria, and also the alignment of award timing with career events such as retirement.
Pro-actively request suitably placed individuals to prepare formal nominations for persons on that list, and to provide supporting documentation, with the aim of making one HGD award every 3 years, on average.
Form an ad hoc sub-committee, adding suitably qualified persons if required to avoid conflicts of interest, to make a recommendation with respect to each nomination.

Currently:

The committee consists of all past HGD awardees who are still active in ORSNZ, and it is envisaged that members will be added as new awards are made, and will retire when they cease ORSNZ activity.
Awards have been well below the target rate in recent years, so further awards may be made within the next 3 years

Sincerely, Prof Vicky Mabin, Prof Andy Philpott and Prof Grant Read (Awards Committee)

ORSNZ Conference 2022 Preliminary Programme

The preliminary programme for the ORSNZ conference has now been posted.

We have 29 presentations scheduled, covering a wide range of topics; here are the titles of the sessions:

Healthcare Modelling
Network Models & Data Science
Decomposition Methods
Hydrogen Integration into Energy Systems
Production Processes & Environmental Modelling
Modelling & Optimization under Uncertainty
Operations Research Tools & Supply Chain Modelling

The last day to register for the conference, including the dinner at debretts kitchen, is Friday, November 18 (although dinner tickets may sell out sooner). However, there may be a limited number of day registrations available until Thursday, November 24.

Deadline approaching for abstract submissions for ORSNZ Conference

The final deadline for abstracts for the upcoming ORSNZ conference is Monday 7 November. We welcome presentations on any aspect of operations research, analytics or management science, especially practical applications.

You can find the details about how to submit, here.

Note that we have prizes for students, including prizes for papers and presentations. You can find the eligibility criteria and submission details, here.

This year the YPP will be jointly sponsored by Optimity and Supply Chain Company.