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1
AIROnews
EDITORIAL
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
Optimizing Customer Contacts
by Eric Bibelnieks, Stefano Gliozzi and Michael P. Haydock
Horizontal Marketing shifts this focus to what can be done
Introduction
In today’s world, consumers face multiple opportunities to better serve a homogenous customer segment across
time: "we need to provide more outerwear opportunities to
and multiple avenues for purchasing servicustomer segment 23 via a specialized forces or goods. Furthermore, today’s global
mat." This customer focus serves as a natueconomy has enabled a company’s competiral bridge between marketing and merchantors to compete on price and quality. Thus,
dising to assist with promotion and offer
the key differentiator becomes providing
strategies. For example, how to allocate adcustomer service and building loyal custovertising dollars across customer segments:
mer relationships. For example, customers
"we should remove $70,000 in advertising
do not have the time to go through the
from customer segments 23 and 42 and
range of items and information they receive
reallocate it to prospecting."
on a daily basis. Chances are only those
marketing contacts that directly appeal to
The Horizontal Marketing Approach
the individual customer are likely to be used
The Horizontal Marketing approach was
to purchase goods or services. It becomes
Eric Bibelnieks
designed to create a “discontinuity” relative
evident then that increasing customer retention and loyalty depends heavily on a greater knowledge of to the traditional way that marketers have worked to
an individual’s behaviors and needs. Business intelligence determine which customers to contact. Many companies
(BI)– the process of transforming transactional data into have utilized data warehousing techniques to organize
customer information or to analyze custokey insight – is just one of the new technomer value though queries and data aggregalogical disciplines that has stepped up to
tion. Some have even utilized data mining
give a company’s marketers a better undertechniques to segment their customers or to
standing of their customers. Now, Operapredict customer response. Until now, these
tions Research techniques of mathematical
approaches or tools have not been synchrooptimization have been employed to enable
nized with optimization. Utilizing these
direct marketers with an innovative, practimethods with optimization, Horizontal
cal means to build long-term relationships
Marketing builds the highest quality one-towith their customers. Horizontal Marketinone relationship over time between an indigTM is the next wave in cutting-edge BI
vidual customer and the company while
technologies for direct marketers. Veering
keeping an eye out for the correct financial
from the traditional campaign-oriented preStefano Gliozzi
constraints. This element of developing a
dictive models, this customer-focused approach uses mathematical optimization to build a complete relationship with the customer over time is the reason we
picture of the company interacts with each customer named the technique “Horizontal Marketing.” Consider a
across time. Today's traditional models focus on the best customer file as a huge spreadsheet with the rows reprecustomers for a particular campaign, whereas Horizontal senting customers and the columns representing the promotions. Typically, marketers “fill” this
Marketing focuses on the best campaigns
spreadsheet vertically by selecting who are
for each customer. Traditional methods
the best customers for each promotion. Our
predict response to a specific campaign or
technique allows us to fill the spreadsheet
catalog with no consideration of upcoming
“horizontally” by selecting what are the best
campaigns. Horizontal Marketing considers
promotions for each customer. By viewing
upcoming campaigns and, with this additioeach cell of the spreadsheet as a 0-1 decision
nal knowledge, allows companies to create
variable, we can use integer optimization
more intimate, one-to-one relationships
techniques to determine the best overall
with each customer. Horizontal Marketing
contact strategy (or relationship) for a comoffers a variety of benefits, both immediate
plete planning period's worth of promoand strategic. For many direct marketers,
Michael P. Haydock
tions. In Figure 1, we give a high level view
the most immediate benefit results from a
of the essential elements of Horizontal
highly selective reduction in circulation.
Two case sudies, below, illustrate the tremendous impact Marketing. For greater detail on the entire process see
Horizontal Marketing can have on business performance. Haydock and Bibelnieks [1] and Erdahl, et al [2]. Central to
Strategically, Horizontal Marketing better aligns the focus the entire process is data. The data warehouse typically
of a company with their customers' needs. Today, direct stores purchase, outbound and inbound contact history via
marketers focus on maximizing the profitability of a speci- all marketing channels, and payment histories, along with
fic promotion: "we need 14% ROI and a minimum of $12 demographic information. There are attributes for each
million in sales from the fall general merchandise catalog." contact promotion. Examples include content and format
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AIROnews
EDITORIAL
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
features to reflect exactly what each catalog contains and customer contact will generate, and thus, an implied custohow that merchandise is shown on a page. In addition to mer preference for each potential contact. With saturation,
raw transactional type data, there are also transformed data we can make the trade offs between sending one contact
elements, such as time since last purchase and number of versus another. Recall the spreadsheet example. This sprepurchases in the last year. The Horizontal Marketing sy- adsheet represents the very large integer optimization mostem accesses the customer-centric data warehouse to del that we have to solve. Each entry in the spread repreobtain the necessary data to segment customers, calculate sents a 0-1 decision that must be made, i.e., to not contact
propensity scores, and build the saturation matrix. Custo- or contact the customer with this promotion. The objecmer segmentation is performed so that we have clusters of tive function becomes maximize the sum of the expected
customers with identical or nearly investment profiles. margin less the contact promotion costs and less the
Typically, this segmentation is performed with the goal of saturation that occurs between contacts (note this is an
managing the resulting customer segments with invest- interaction which is modeled as a quadratic term and
subsequently lineament strategies,
Customer
Bu
Cu stomer
Budget
dget
rized). Trying to atwhich achieve
Seg
n
Segmen
mentatio
tation
AAllocation
llocation
tack this problem
shareholder’s
in a straightgoals of reveata
forward manner
nue growth and DData
Pro
AAdjust
djust Sco
Scores
res
Propensity
pen sity
OOptimization
W areho use
ptimization
Sco
for
for Saturation
Saturation
Scoring
ring
will not work; the
maintaining/in- W areho use
number of 0-1 vacreasing profiSatu
ration
Saturation
riables is too enortability. The apM
Moodels
dels
mous. For exampropriate budFigure 1 - The main processing steps within Horizontal Marketing
ple, consider a
get for each cucompany with a restomer
segment is determined in the next step. Investors use a latively small customer list of 1 million customers. They
technique called “asset allocation” to determine the want to build contact strategies for each customer where
amount of dollars that should be spent in each investment each customer is eligible for 10 contacts in the next two
family or asset class. We apply similar techniques by months. This results in 10 mail/no-mail decisions, or 1024
viewing each customer segment as an investment family. contact strategies to consider for each of the 1 million
The resulting allocation of budget dollars provides the customers, over 1 billion decisions. Therefore, we had to
maximum return for the fewest advertising dollars while take a more thoughtful approach. We addressed the comconstraining the entire portfolio (the customer list) to meet plexity of this problem in two ways. First, the number of
certain corporate financial objectives. These constraints customers can be simplified by clustering customers into
range from the expected return on alternative uses of these segments. Secondly, for each customer, we need only
funds to the minimum amount of advertising needed to consider a small subset of his or her potential contact
sustain a customer relationship. The propensity models strategies. This can be handled by a column generation
determine the expected margin (sales revenue minus pro- approach. To solve the optimization, we developed a
duct costs, cancels, returns, and bad debt) that a customer four-step process (see Figure 2):
contact will generate. Typically, database marketing compa- - Propensity Clustering (where customer segments are
nies use either multiple regression or logistic regression further segmented into smaller clusters)
models to provide these scores. The difference of the - Contact Stream Generation, and Contact Stream Selecpredicted margin and the promotion’s cost produces the tion (which work together using column generation)
quantity which is optimized: marketing income. The inte- - Contact Stream Assignment (where the final customer
raction of contacts is an extremely important component level solution is produced).
of Horizontal Marketing. Saturation describes that portion In propensity clustering, we cluster customers into segof a contact's sales that are consumed by a follow-on ments according to their propensity scores, so that the
contact mailed while the original contact was still genera- resulting segment could receive the same contact strategy
ting sales and vice versa. After close investigation we have with minimal impact to the overall objective. In contact
seen that there are three forces that contribute to satura- stream (we defined a contact stream to be the sequence of
tion: merchandise similarity, presentation/incentive simila- contacts the customer will receive over a window of time)
rity, and time between contacts. We model saturation via a generation, we generate a subset of high quality contact
matrix whose rows and columns represent promotions and streams from all the streams available for that propensity
each entry is interpreted as the row promotion’s impact as cluster. In contact stream selection, we enforce constraints
a percentage drop in the column promotion’s expected that go across the entire customer list such as, upper and
margin score. Since Horizontal Marketing looks across lower limits on total contact volumes and the total amount
time to make the optimal decisions for contacting a custo- spent on contacts. And finally, in contract stream assignmer, we must consider the past contacts a customer has ment, each customer is assigned a contact stream that was
received and their impacts on upcoming future contacts. given to its propensity cluster. Note for contact stream
This is done by retrieving contact history from the data selection, the decision variables are continuous. It is possiwarehouse and adjusting each predicted margin score using ble a propensity cluster would have 67% of its customers
the saturation models. We are now prepared to solve the receiving one contract stream and remaining 33% get
optimization model. We know how much to spend on another. Once this process is complete, the company has a
each customer via customer segmentation and budget contact strategy for each customer for a window of time.
allocation. We know how much marketing income each However, we typically recommend that companies only
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AIROnews
EDITORIAL
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
Horizontal Marketing and their operations research expertise. The team developed a customer selection system
called Mail Stream Optimization (MSO). Fingerhut defines
a mail stream as the sequence of
CCustomer
BBudget
catalogs that a customer will reudg et
ustomer
Seg
AAllo
llocatio
cationn
Segmentatio
mentationn
O ptimization
ceive over a window of time. By
picking the optimal mail stream
for each customer, MSO focuses
DData
ata
Propen
AAdju
Propensity
djustst Sco
Scores
res
Propensity
sity
Propensity
W
on the customer, not the catalog.
Wareho
arehouse
use
Sco
for
CCluster
for Saturation
Saturation
Scorin
ringg
lustering
ing
Fingerhut consistently tests new
mailing approaches, and with a
CContact
Stream
ontact
Stream
Saturation
Saturation
GGeneratio
nn
system of this size and imporeneratio
M
Models
odels
tance, there was definitely a need
CContact
ontact Stream
Stream
to test before implementation.
Selection
Selection
Fingerhut randomly chose test
and control groups from its entire
CContact
ontact Stream
Stream
list. Each group consisted of 10
AAssignment
ssignment
percent or 700,000 individuals.
The control group received maiFigure 2 - The Optimization Process of Horizontal Marketing in greater detail
lings according to the traditional
Below are two cases studies describing where Horizontal marketing methods. The test group received fewer, more
appropriate mailings as a result of MSO. The goal was to
Marketing has been applied.
remove 70 percent to 80 percent saturative mailings with
an acceptable reduction in sales. The results exceeded
Fingerhut case study
Fingerhut Companies, Inc. is one of the United States' Fingerhut’s expectations. In Figure 3, the results are
largest direct marketing and online retailers and has been a broken down by recency groups (recency is defined as the
wholly owned subsidiary of Federated Department Stores, number of months since last purchase). Overall, advertiInc. (NYSE: FD) since March 1999. Fingerhut sells a sing costs for the test group fell 6 percent with just a 1.5
broad range of products and services through direct percent loss in revenue. More importantly, the overall test
marketing channels – catalogs, telemarketing, and the In- group actually generated a 2 percent profit gain, which
ternet. Within its catalog operations, Fingerhut mails over meant higher profits on slightly lower sales -- precisely
100 times a year with a total of more than 340,000,000 what Fingerhut sought to achieve. In absolute terms,
catalogs annually to its 7,000,000 active customers and MSO is directly responsible for a $3.5 million annual profit
collects $2 billion in revenues. In the past 10 years, Fin- gain, a very significant figure for a company of Fingerhut’s
gerhut dramatically increased both the number of catalogs size. Furthermore, MSO had eliminated mailings that were
produced and the number of catalogs mailed -- to the point over 82 percent saturative. Based on these results, Finwhere almost a catalog a week was added between 1990 gerhut fully launched its MSO system in September of
and 1995. A Fingerhut customer could theoretically re- 1998, applying the MSO process to all existing customers.
ceive 120 catalogs each year, and in fact, some of their best Fingerhut replaced a product-centric marketing process
customers did. The result was that Fingerhut started to see with a customer-centric process, with significant payback
significant saturation between catalogs. A mailing is termed both quantitatively and qualitatively. MSO unquestionably
is generating quantifiable
saturative if it does not gebenefits for Fingerhut.
nerate unique revenue.
MSO’s qualitative benefits
10
For example, if 80% of a
for Fingerhut are just as
catalog’s revenue would
significant as its impact on
have occurred had it not
5
the bottom line. Finbeen mailed, that catalog is
Pro fit
gerhut expects customer
80%
saturative.
Put
satisfaction and retention
another way, catalogs be0
rates to rise as customers
gan siphoning off one
receive fewer, more apanother’s revenue, decreaR ev enu e
–5
propriate catalogs. Fursing the productivity of all
thermore, MSO is promocatalogs. For Fingerhut,
A dv er tising
ting a cultural change
the business problem in–10
within Fingerhut, moving
volved identifying and eli0–6
7 – 12
13 – 24
2 5+
O ver all
the organization into a
minating unproductive or
C u stomer G ro u ps
customer-centric managesaturative
contacts,
Figure 3 - Results of Horizontal Marketing Mail Test at Fingerhut
ment philosophy. Finwithout significantly impacting catalog revenues. IBM proposed Horizontal gerhut and IBM were recognized for the MSO project as
Marketing. A partnership was formed, where Fingerhut one of six finalists in INFORM’s 2000 Franz Edelman
supplied the statisticians, business expertise and program- Competition.[2]
ming resources, while IBM brought the key concepts of
Percentag e C h ang e
use the early portion of the contact stream for tactical
decisions and recalculate the contact strategy on a weekly
or monthly schedule as the data warehouse refreshes.
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AIROnews
EDITORIAL
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
and increase the profits of over 10,000£. Another test
Express Gifts case study
Express Gifts Ltd. is a medium size UK direct marketing illustrated modest improvements in response rates, yet
retailer and a major part of the £200,000,000 home shop- significant increases in average order size. Express Gifts
ping, fundraising and educational supplies group Fine Art Ltd. has now transformed their method for contacting
Developments plc., Express Gifts markets a wide range of customers, shifting the focus to a customer centric view
merchandise, including greeting cards, gifts, toys and deco- rather than to a catalog/product mix oriented one. The
rations, through mail order catalogues with two distinct Horizontal Marketing concepts have been shown to be
brands, Studio Cards and Ace Gifts. In addition to its both useful and successful, even in a "light" implementacatalogue brands, it provides home shopping services for tion, proving the robustness of the approach and the
third-party clients and national charities, distributing over relevance of the catalog interaction phenomenon.
Eric Bibelnieks
6 million catalogues annually and receiving up to 25,000
[email protected]
telephone calls and 30,000 envelopes daily. It employs 700
Senior Consultant, Solution Assets and Innovations,
permanent staff, supplemented by some 2,000 temps in the
IBM Global Services
peak pre-Christmas period. After the deployment of a
highly automated picking-packing warehouse, dimensioned
Stefano Gliozzi
to cope with the pre-Christmas peak, there have been
stefano_gliozzi
@ it.ibm.com
growing concerns on the cost of operation during offConsultant,
Business
Intelligence,
season period. Therefore Express Gifts, once specialized
IBM Global Services
in Christmas related products, broadened its offerings to
include contemporary home and gift ideas. Express Gifts’
Michael P. Haydock
strategy has also been to increase the number of catalogs
[email protected]
mailed, to increase the sales and operations during the
Worldwide Practice Leader for Sell & Support Category,
whole year, smoothing the Christmas peak. Moreover,
IBM Global Services
Express Gifts recognized that its RFM (recency, frequency
and monetary value) marketing strategy was inefficient.
References
The RFM evaluations were leading to some customers [1] M. P. Haydock and E. Bibelnieks, “Horizontal Marketing: Optireceiving too many catalogues and others not enough. The mized One-to-One Marketing” in Operational Research in Indutry,
increased number of catalogs and the transition in the T.A.Ciriani, S. Gliozzi, E.L. Johnson, and R. Tadei (eds.), Macmillan
product mix further emphasized this inefficiency. Express (1999), 247-267.
Gifts heard of IBM’s Horizontal Marketing approach and [2] R. Erdahl, D. Campbell, D. Johnson, E. Bibelnieks, M. P.
felt it could remedy their inefficiencies. An IBM - Express Haydock, M. Bullock, and H. Crowder, “Optimizing Customer Mail
Gifts partnership was formed, where IBM supplied the Streams”, Interfaces, (to appear Spring 2001).
key concepts Horizontal Marketing and the Data Analysis,
while Express Gifts supplied marketing and business
analysis skills. The aim of the project was to implement a About the Authors:
full Horizontal Marketing approach, customized to Express Gifts’ size/skill set. From the very beginning, an Eric Bibelnieks is a Senior Consultant for IBM’s Solution Assets
Express Gifts Ltd. requirement was to design the Horizon- and Innovations practice within IBM’s Global Services Division. He
tal Marketing process as simple as possible to enforce a specializes in applying mathematical optimization and data mining
to assist business-to-consumer and business-tolong-term manageability of the whole marketing process in techniques
business companies build loyal and profitable customer relaa relatively small company. A development plan was crea- tionships. He earned a BS in Mathematics from Wofford College
ted with milestones and staged implementation phases that and a MS and PhD in Mathematical Sciences from Clemson
allowed Express Gifts to grow its Horizontal Marketing University.
skills and sophistication over time. For the first phase, the
team developed a simplified version of each of the main Stefano Gliozzi is a Consultant for Business Intelligence practice
steps of the Horizontal Marketing approach. Customer within IBM’s Global Services Division. He specializes in the use of
quantitative methods, data mining and optimization algorithms to
Segmentation has been performed using data mining te- help clients in evaluating and implementing business decisions.
chniques to gain knowledge and define different Before becoming an IBM consultant, he worked in IBM Software
"portfolios" of customers. An asset allocation tool has development, participating in the design and development of
been developed to ensure an optimal allocating of the Optimization and Optimization Modeling software. He earned a
marketing budget among the portfolios. Scoring model degree in Statistics and Economics from "La Sapienza" university
methodologies were defined. A study on the catalog inte- in Rome.
raction has been done. Finally, a heuristic procedure to
Michael P. Haydock is World Wide Practice Leader and senior IBM
approach an optimal mailing policy for each customer has Executive for the Sell & Support Category Solutions Practice within
been defined. This heuristic allowed Express Gifts to IBM’s Global Services Division. Mr. Haydock leads the company’s
proceed with Horizontal Marketing while they grew the efforts in Business Intelligence, Customer Relationship Manageskills and staff required to implement Horizontal Marke- ment, Web Selling & e-Commerce, Interactive Branding & Design,
ting using integer optimization. Early tests on the benefits and Pervasive Computing. As a consultant, Mr. Haydock assists
of the Horizontal Marketing segmentation and scoring companies, from diverse industries, in the application of mathemodels alone, gave encouraging results. On a single catalog matical optimization and business modeling to complex risk management and marketing management problems. Mr. Haydock
test performed on a random sample of the customers, earned a BS and a MS in market research from Florida Atlantic
Express Gifts was able to save 70,000£ in mailing costs, University.
5
AIROnews
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
AIRO ACTIVITIES
ANNOUNCEMENT OF COMPETITION
CREATION OF A NEW AIRO WEBSITE
AND GUIDED TOUR
OF OPERATIONS RESEARCH
http://www.airo.org/competition
Deadline: December 31, 2000
AIRO - The Italian Operations Research Society - Optimization and Decision Sciences, with the support of EURO
- The Association of European Operational Research Societies - invites proposals for the creation of a new Website
and guided tour presenting Operations Research. Registration for participation in the competition must be made to
The Secretary, AIRO (Signora Agnese Martinoli, Via Serretto 1/4, I-16131 Genova, Italy) by fax (+39 010
3777703), letter or e-mail ([email protected]), by completing the application form available from the Secretariat
of AIRO or on the Internet at URL http://www.airo.org/
competition. The proposals must be delivered to the Secretary of AIRO by 12.00 am. on the 31/12/2000. The
winner will receive the sum of 2,500 (two thousand five
hundred) euros.
ASSEGNAZIONE
PREMIO DI LAUREA CAMERINICARRARESI 2000
Durante le Giornate di Lavoro AIRO 2000, tenutesi all’Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca dal 18 al 21 settembre, è stato consegnato il premio di laurea CameriniCarraresi di L. 2.500.000, destinato a tesi di laurea sul tema
"Ottimizzazione discreta e sue applicazioni". La Commissione giudicatrice ha assegnato il premio ex aequo a: Dr.
Luca GIROLAMI (laureato in Matematica presso l’Università degli Studi di Camerino) per la tesi dal titolo "Analisi di
segnali acquisiti con sensoristica magneto-ottica mediante Artificial
Neural Networks e Hidden Markov Models”” ed alla Dr.ssa
Stefania ZAMA (laureata in Ingegneria Gestionale presso
la Facoltà di Ingegneria dell’Università di Bologna) per la
tesi dal titolo “Analisi ed ottimizzazione dei percorsi per la
raccolta differenziata dei rifiuti. Il caso AMI”. Riportiamo, qui di
seguito, il giudizio della Commissione: “La Commissione
esprime apprezzamento per tutte le tesi presentate (4 in
totale), sia relativamente alla qualità che alla rilevanza dei
problemi affrontati. Entrambe le tesi affrontano importanti problemi reali utilizzando strumenti classici ed innovativi della Ricerca Operativa, in stretta collaborazione con
Aziende, rispettivamente SIGMA e AMI (Azienda Multiservizi Intercomunale con sede ad Imola), fattivamente
interessate all’utilizzazione pratica dei risultati conseguiti”.
Il premio di L. 2.500.000 è stato quindi diviso tra i due
vincitori.
QUOTE SOCIALI AIRO 2001
La quota di iscrizione all’AIRO dei soci individuali per
l’anno 2001 è di L. 130.000. I soci che effettueranno il
pagamento della quota per l’anno 2001, entro il 30 novembre 2000, riceveranno anche, per tutto il 2001, la Rivista
bimestrale “OR/MS Today”, edita da INFORMS
(Institute for Operations Research and the Management
Sciences). La quota per i soci studenti, neo-laureati e
dottorandi è di L. 40.000. Nel caso desiderassero ricevere
anche la suddetta pubblicazione, dovranno versare, insieme
alla quota, una maggiorazione di L. 30.000, ed effettuare il
pagamento entro il 30 novembre 2000. I termini di versamento sono tassativi per poter perfezionare gli abbonamenti. L’iniziativa è rivolta anche a coloro che non sono
soci, ma che presenteranno domanda di iscrizione entro il
15 novembre 2000 e verseranno la quota 2001 entro il 30
novembre, accreditando l’importo sul conto corrente bancario n.3897, intestato all’Associazione Italiana di Ricerca
Operativa, presso la Banca Nazionale del Lavoro di Genova, Largo Eros Lanfranco (coordinate bancarie: ABI
01005 – CAB 01400). Il pagamento può essere effettuato
anche mediante carta di credito, inviando compilato e
firmato alla Segreteria AIRO, casella postale 795, 16121
Genova, fax: 010 3777703, il modulo stampato nella terza
di copertina di AIRONews.
Bulletin ASRO-SVOR
Association Suisse de Recherche Opérationelle
Schweizerische Vereinigung für
Operations Research
Associazione Svizzera di Ricerca Operativa
http://iiufpc44.unifr.ch/Wasro
Contents n. 109 (août 2000)
•Guest Editorial
•1er juillet 2000 : le Professeur Charles Blanc a 90 ans
•EURO and its Member Societies - A EURO
Perspective, by Christoph Schneeweiss
•Are you interested in CEJOR ?
•AIROnews no 2/2000 contents
•AIRO : Announcement of Competition
•Mise au concours des Prix ASRO (thèses, diplômes)/
Ausschreibung der SVOR-Preise (Dissertationen,
Diplomarbeiten)
•ROADEF'2001 Challenge
6
AIROnews
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
AIRO ACTIVITIES
ASSOCIAZIONE
ITALIANA
DI RICERCA
OPERATIVA
XXXII Annual Conference of the Operations Research Society of Italy
Cagliari, September 4-7, 2001
Call for Papers
OPERATIONAL RESEARCH IN LAND AND RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
THEME
The theme is open, but contributions on Operational Research in
Land and Resources Management are particularly appreciated.
DEADLINES
May 5, 2001 = Submission of abstracts
June 5, 2001 = Acceptance notice
DATE AND LOCATION
AIRO2001, the Annual Conference of the Operations Research
Society of Italy, will be held in Cagliari, Villasimius, on September
4-7, 2001. The conference is a good opportunity of celebrating 40
years of AIRO life and the entrance of the Association in the new
millenium, in a beatiful place along the southern coast of Sardinia
(Italy) in the middle of Mediterranean Sea.
REGISTRATION FEES
ORGANIZATION
The Conference is organised into plenary and concurrent
sessions. The Conference languages are Italian and English.
The Registration Fee allows the free subscription to AIRO for
2002. For non members it includes the AIRO association fee for
the current year.
CALL FOR PAPERS
TRAVEL AND ACCOMMODATION
Researchers and O.R. practitioners wishing to present papers
should send an abstract of maximum 300 words within May 5,
2001. The abstract, written in a text or word format file, should
contain: title, authors, affiliations (tel., fax, e-mail), three key words
and at most five references. The abstract must not contain
formulas, tables and figures. The file should be sent to:
For detailed information about travelling and accommodation
participants may contact the Organizing Secretariat.
AIRO2001 – Prof. Paola Zuddas
Dipartimento di Ingegneria del Territorio
Sezione Idraulica, Università degli Studi di Cagliari
Piazza D’Armi 09123 Cagliari – Italy
SELECTION OF PAPERS
Acceptance notice will be given to authors within June 5, 2001.
Conference Proceedings will be available on the web at the
address www.airo.org.
SPECIAL ISSUE OF AIRO JOURNAL
A special issue of “Ricerca Operativa”, the AIRO Journal, will be
devoted to papers presented at the Conference.
Authors interested in this opportunity have to submit the full paper
within October 30, 2001.
Within July 5, 2001
Reg. Fee
Ph.Ds.
Students
Euro 260
Euro 94
Euro 36
After July 5, 2001
Euro 310
Euro 104
Euro 46
SCIENTIFIC SECRETARIAT
AIRO2001
Dipartimento di Ingegneria del Territorio
Università degli Studi di Cagliari
Piazza D’Armi
I-09123 Cagliari, Italy
Tel. +39 070 6755320
Fax +39 070 6755310
e-mail: [email protected]
http://pcserver.unica.it/AIRO2001
ORGANIZING SECRETARIAT
Corsi & Congressi
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7
AIROnews
SAILING
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
Micro Processor Production Planning
by Javad Ahmadi and Bill Bushnell
Preface
In the fifties we use to call it CPU and we
were astonished that so efficient component
occupies a building large floor only. We were
eagerly waiting for a human body size. But
the old-IT men did not expect the square
inch integration. And now from micron
technology we foresee a rapid evolution to
nano machines. Another OR application?
the frequency of change to methods or product nomenclature. By and large, spreadsheets have been used as the
basic planning calculators. However, with increasing complexity of back-end operations and increasing demand for
test capacity, such ad hoc tools quickly become impractical. In particular since such spreadsheet models are not
data driven, any new product introduction, or method
changes, e.g. short term addition of re-test loops (nonTito A. Ciriani
linear and conditional test paths), requires tremendous
Tito A. Ciriani manual revision of the model. This process has proven
cumbersome and highly error prone. While a full-fledged
linear programming based planning system had been deveWafer Fabrication
The manufacture of integrated circuits (IC’s), micro pro- loped at AMD for initial deployment in wafer fabrication
cessors in particular, has become increasingly complicated facilities, we realized that formal requirements of the planning tool would hinder its success in back-end
with higher degrees of integration and feature
planning circles. Several other aspects of backreduction. Typical IC fabrication consists of
end operations were also interesting. Due to
two major activities: wafer fabrication (frontmuch shorter cycle times weekly time buckets
end) followed by assembly, test and packaging
were too large. Daily or sub-daily time buckets
(back-end) operations. The wafer fabrication
would be necessary. The tool needed to be
process has a lengthy cycle time. For the more
independent from any formal nomenclature syrecent .18 micron technologies deployed in
stem so that users could easily create and change
high end processors such as AMD’s K6 and
product structure and routing and product indiAthlon (Figure 1) with current speeds of 1.1
ces: cycle times, bin distributions, yields, reGHz the wafer fabrication cycle time may be as
source consumption rates, and other planning
long as 10-12 weeks. Back-end processing that
Javad Ahmadi
attributes. Since the indices are time dependent
typically took one week may now require up to
the
users
would
need to have the ability to turn on or off
three weeks for completion. Some new back-end activities
include operations such as module assembly. The com- various structures on a scheduled basis. For example,
initially a more aggressive test method may be
plexity of the new processor manufacturing has
used, but as the product matures, test methods
significant yield variance. As such a greater range
and assumptions are modified.
of processor grades determined by speed, voltage, and temperature, are possible from the
Micro Processor Planner
same lot. To reclaim as much productivity and
gain from production, extensive sort testing to
The new application called Micro Processor
identify the various bins are conducted. Overall,
Planner (MPP) is in deployment phase. It has
the test processes have become far more extenbeen placed in extensive testing and validation
sive and several levels of testing take place. One
and has proved its correctness and capability.
interesting and emerging behavior has been conMPP is a web based application that uses an
tinuous modification and revision of the test
LP model for planning decision support. User
Bill Bushnell
plans as product yield characteristics mature and
models [2] are generated by EasyModeler [3]
change. This is also true of the wafer fabrication processes and solved by OSL solver. The user interface provides a
where early tests and examinations are used to decide the graphical interface for depiction of product flow structures
best continuation method in order to maximize yields lot (nodes and arcs). Users can edit an existing scenario or
by lot. As such, at any time several routes and recipes may create a new one. Each node and arc is an active element
be active for the same product in fabrication and manufac- that bears associative data (indices) related to the product
turing areas. This new dynamic has placed a great deal of and processes such as cycle time, yield, and resource
burden on the planners in terms of product production requirements. It provides the users with a visual method of
method data and nomenclature required. One major diffi- managing product structures with their own nomenclature.
culty in past attempts to introduce formal planning sy- Each data set is kept as a scenario that can be modified and
stems to back-end facilities has been this lack formalism or re-executed, thus providing a what-if environment for
8
AIROnews
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
SAILING
ched on or off. Since MPP is a web
based application various organizations that are in ownership of data
components (and typically geographically distributed) can enter the
latest data for support of the formal
planning exercises independently.
The controlled visibility and accessibility of the application seems to
have inspired other organizations
such as Sales and Finance to use the
tool for results access and other decision support activities.
Javad Ahmadi
Advanced Micro Devices
[email protected]
Bill Bushnell
Advanced Micro Devices
[email protected]
References
Figure 1 - High end processors
planning scenarios. Reporting functions of the application provide online views and the ability to export any
report to a Microsoft Excel
worksheet. Users typically create
weekly plans covering a business plan-
ning quarter. By default the modeling
environment allows users to try different objective functions as defined by
manufacturing planning groups. Many
of the constraints such as capacity,
material, or volume limits can be swit-
OR NEWSLETTER CONTENTS
http://www.orsoc.org.uk
July 2000
News
•Animation enhances simulation software
•E-commerce growing fast, but security worries remain
•New internet search service
•Simulation package handles liquid flows
Leader
•Thinking about the future
Features
•Angels of life (article on survival of species, markets etc)
•New business process simulator launched
•A quick guide to IFORS
•Knowledge Management delivers competitive advantage
August 2000
News
•Consultants' network is more than the sum of its
members
•Enterprise reporting helps defence
[1] AMD Athlon™ Processor Product Brief,
Advanced Micro Devices, 2000 http://
www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon/
prodbrief.html
[2] J. Ahmadi, R. Benson and D.
Suppernaw-Issen, “Supply-chain Production Planning” in Operational Research in
Industry, T.A.Ciriani, S.Gliozzi, E.L.Johnson,
and R.Tadei (eds.) Macmillan (1999), 199231.
[3] IBM Corporation, EasyModeler, User
Guide, IBM Form SB13-5249 (1994).
•Comprehensive modelling & analysis tool launched
•Broadcast and IT set to converge
Leader
•What's in a name?
Features
•The Modified Anthropic Principle
•How to satisfy ever more demanding customers
•Technology that brought us the computer, the
microwave oven, etc
September 2000
News
•New website matches consultants to projects
•Care needed in Human Resources restructuring
Leader
•Steady as she goes
Features
•The intractability of tacit knowledge (conference report)
•Solving the numbers game efficiently (refers to TV quiz
programme)
•Is there an EWG for you?
9
AIROnews
SKEDULING
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
Nonlinear Programming Application Results
by Tito A.Ciriani and Josef Kallrath
Preface
The readers‘ interest forced us to present the
origin and the recent exploitations of the four
nonlinear stories that appeared in 1999
Spring of the AIRO News. The rushing
forthcoming of Information Technology
improvements will render the experimental
algorithms more popular and nonlinear
programming will be consistent with the
petroleum companies‘ requirements such as
process simulation and design and on-line
process control.
Andrea Grosso
Andrea Grosso
blending and product distribution. It provides "Supply
Chain Management" capabilities to integrate planning and
scheduling from crude supply to product delivery. It is
built from developed modules and it became a unified
whole when they linked such modules together. The
referred technique, successive linear programming, is
based on first-order Taylor series approximation to the
objective and constraints functions. Practical approaches
simplify the algorithms assuming an initial value of
nonlinear coefficients computed on an experimented
solution. At each step the nonlinear coefficient are recomputed based on the actual LP solution. The iteration
terminates when the changes are smaller than a predefined
bound value. As non-desired but frequent result, this
approach may lead to diverging solution values. Several
mathematical techniques are studied to find a converging
technique. In the last decade, in order to improve such a
basic method, the nonlinear programming
adopts direct techniques to better approach a
non-local
optimum
with
convergent
techniques. In the AIROnews Bridge paper [4]
and in [5] several applications of Mixed Integer
Nonlinear Programming are described. Next
session focuses on further work and results
related to these projects.
The Origins
Linear Programming found its first issues on
petrochemical applications. Immediately the linear borders
appear too tight: nonlinearities became an
intrinsic requirement for the practical
applications. Mainly pooling techniques
represent a successful impact in the petroleum
arena. Standard Oil, followed by the other major
Companies, intensifies the research studies to
obtain an optimization methodology able to
iterate over the LP and to reach a local
optimum. After such experimental phase,
independent consultant companies share the
Next step
Tito A.Ciriani
market with satisfactory results on nonlinear
The first problem lead to a MINLP model for
problems. Bonner & Moore [2] [http://
describing a petrochemical network including
www.bonnermoore.com/] (the Bonner & Moore several steam crackers and plants located at two different
applications have been integrated with Hi-Spec Solutions’ sites. The production-planning model coded in PIMS
advanced scheduling and optimization
(Aspen Tech.) is still in operation and well
capabilities
of
Honeywell,
http://
maintained. Further problems related to
www.hispec.com) and Haverly Systems Inc.[3]
mathematical optimization and petrochemical
[http://www.haverly.com/] become the leaders
network optimization will be treated soon. The
offering models and database tailored for
second and third problem (a tanker refinerypetrochemical nonlinear applications. Bonner &
scheduling problem and a network design
Moore's RPMS is a Windows based application
problem) were problems in which the client
which helps you achieve effective planning. It
asked for an analysis and improvement of a
addresses the operations, planning, crude oil
current situation. Although analyses were
assay analysis, operations scheduling, product
finished they launched further research work in
blending, and yield accounting/performance
so far that the author is now involved in global
Josef Kallrath
monitoring. In particular it helps to:
optimization. Especially, for design problems
· Evaluate and select crude oil and raw
with strategic consequences it is vital that one really
materials
computes the global optimum. The fourth problem was
· Formulate of optimum operating plans
concerned with a process design problem in which some
· Evaluation the capital investments in processing process parameters and the optimal topology of a cascade
equipment
of chemical reactors are computed with respect to
· Supply and distribute modeling with multiple plants, optimizing total production, selectivity, energy, and costs
transportation modes, and end-market locations
(Figure 1). This project combined strategic and operative
· Evaluate processing and exchange agreements
planning aspects. It has been very lively over the last few
· Assess competitive analysis and market evaluations.
years, and below we summarize a few activities and new
RPMS supports a tool in solving nonlinear problems by results. After completion of the software, the model was
successive linear programming [1,6] such as those submitted to a comprehensive validation process. Process
introduced with reformulated gasoline. Haverly Systems' data collected for production periods with distinct
OmniSuite™ is the result of many years of product differences in operating parameters were used for
development and experience. It brings together into a comparison with simulated data obtained using sets of
unified whole crude-oil supply, refining, and product plant-specific boundary conditions. Simulated data were
10
AIROnews
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
SKEDULING
effective alterations to the
plant design are right now
under construction in one of
the plants and wait to meet
the expectation of capacity
increase. Calculations using
the MINLP capability show
that the existing plant
topology is similar to a
calculated design optimum
when
typical
plant-like
boundary conditions are used
as basis for the calculations.
Calculations currently under
way intend to lift these
boundary conditions and will
be used for designing a new
plant being possibly part of a
future capital project.
Figure 1 - Production Scheduling Flow
shown to match production data very closely even for
several independently operated plants. The validation
process was necessary to prove the predictive force of the
model. The primary use of the program comprises
quantitative evaluation of specific design options. Because
of the complexity of interdependencies within the set of
process parameters, it is difficult in general to judge the
effect of a specific action on unit ratios, variable costs, and
production capacity. For quantitative comparison of two
or more options to either change parameters or process
design, it is necessary to compare optimized operating
conditions within given technical or economic boundary
conditions. This became possible with the NLP optimizer
used in the model. It allows for reliable and consistent
conclusions on the efficiency of changes to the plant. A
key issue for debottlenecking actions in existing plants is
not to deteriorate unit ratios or variable costs when
increasing capacity. These boundary conditions can be
fixed for consistent comparison of expected production
rates. The value of the model connected to the optimizing
suite becomes apparent when looking at the ease and
speed at which optimized process design options can be
calculated. For the user, there is no longer need of line
programming or extensive alterations to input
specifications when the topology of the process has to be
changed as it happens to be the case for traditional process
simulation software. Instead, the connectivity matrix in the
EXCEL front-end of the model is altered by the user
literally at the click-on-a-button within seconds while
typical optimization runs are finished within about 10
seconds on a standard Pentium PC. The computational
evaluation of a total of ~20 different conceptually possible
design options to increase production rates led easily to a
list of design options, which heretofore were not obvious
or difficult to judge quantitatively. Some of the options for
optimization of the process which are expected to have a
high return on investment are already proven to be
successful in production. Some less expensive, but very
Conclusive remarks
The major difficulty to
formulate and solve real life
modeling
resides
in
nonlinearities. Phil Wolfe is aware of such condition and
his research and applications efforts are looking at specific
mathematical algorithms able to support a satisfactory
method. His knowledge transfer obtains an evident
improvement of nonlinear programming efficient
algorithms. But such efforts should be limited to a
restricted community of practitioners if the unpredictable
increase of microprocessor performances did not take
place.
Anyhow we can say with Phil:
Tito A. Ciriani
Pisa
[email protected]
Josef Kallrath,
Ludwigshafen (Germany) & Gainesville (Florida,U.S.A.)
[email protected]
References
[1] M.S.Bazaara, H.D.Sherali, C.M.Shetty, Nonlinear Programming: Theory and
Algorithms, Wiley (1993).
[2] R.E.Coxhead, “Integrated Planning and Scheduling Systems for Refinery Industry”, in Optimization in Industry 2, T.A.Ciriani, R.C.Leachman, Wiley (1994),
185-199.
[3] M.Fieldhouse, “The Pooling Problem”, in Optimization in Industry 1, T.A.Ciriani,
R.C.Leachman, Wiley (1993), 223-230.
[4] J.Kallrath, “Nonlinear Optimization: Models, Algorithms, Tools and Support”,
AIROnews, IV, 2 (1999), 5-10.
[5] J.Kallrath, “Mixed-integer Nonlinear Programming Applications”, in Operational
Research in Industry, T.A.Ciriani, S. Gliozzi, E.L.Johnson, and R. Tadei (eds.),
Macmillan (1999), 42-76.
[6] J.Kallrath, J.M.Wilson, Business Optimization Using Mathematical Programming, Macmillan (1997).
11
AIROnews
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
JUBILEE AND OR
The XV World Youth Day: some aspects of mobility planning
by Monica Gentili and Fabrizio Guerrieri
Their main task consisted in directing not-booked groups
to SA and in checking booked groups. Limited Traffic
Zone (ZTL): some streets during the celebration of the
XV World Youth Day (August 19-20) were forbidden to
daily urban traffic in order to protect safety of participants
to the event. Pedestrian Routes: 6 pedestrian routes were
defined in order to reach the Tor Vergata area; they were
distinguished by a colour and had a
maximum length of 10 km and a minimum length of 3 km. Managing tourist
buses was the critical aspect of mobility plan. The real problem was not the
total amount of buses, but their arrival
at the city through few hours of Sunday 14 and Monday 15.
Approaching scheme for Booked group. The
group knew its Parish Secretariat, its
parking area and the route from PdA
to Parish Secretariat. In this case, the
bus was only checked by the volunteers at the PdA then the group followed the route to Parish Secretariat
Figure 1 - Example of Travelling Form
where was welcome by the organising
commitment. People moved to lodging and the bus to
Mobility Plan
Young people arrived to the city using several modes: parking area.
private buses (about 850.000 persons); trains (about Approaching scheme for not booked group. The group was stop100.000 persons); planes and ships (about 80.000 persons); ped at PdA where they received informative materials by
other modes (about 100.000 persons). In particular, the volunteers. It was directed to the nearest SA where it was
planning of the mobility of the event was effectuated assigned the Parish Secretariat, lodging and the parking
considering roughly 16.000 buses arriving in the city of area related.
which: 5.000 buses, the so-called hikers, arriving to the
Capital during August 19 and parking in short-parking Allocation of parking areas
areas; 11.000 buses, the so-called residents, arriving at Problems of allocating buses to long-parking and shortRome from August 14 and parking in the long-parking parking areas were faced as modified transport models
areas. In order to manage movements of a great number of where, in the first case, origin points were the lodging
buses inside the city and around it a complex mobility plan places and destination points the long-parking areas; in the
was elaborated. The plan was finalised to concentrate second case, instead, origin points were PdA and destinaparking areas far from the centre of the city and to tion points were short-parking areas.
promote young people moving by public transport. The Allocation of long-parking areas. Objective of the model was
group were booked or not-booked and the scheme of their assigning parking areas to each bus arriving from a lodging
place minimising the total
approaching to the city
cost. The cost function in this
was different. The main
case had two components: the
elements of the mobility
first one considering the diplan were: Parish Secrestance between the origin and
tariat: 257 places where
the destination, the second
groups are welcomed and
one considering the activating
directed to lodgings. Area
cost of parking area. ConSecretariats (SA): 4 SA
straints of the models, besides
were instituted. They had
the well known flow equilithe task of directing notbrium and arc capacity conbooked groups to Parish
straints, consisted on: 1. actiSecretariats, of assigning
vating a parking for, at least, a
lodgings and of spreading
minimum predefined number
informative
materials
of buses; 2. assigning the same
about the assigned pedeparking areas to buses joining
strian route, the public
the same group of pilgrims; 3.
transport, the access ways
Figure 2 - Welcome Points (PdA) and Area Secretariats
activating parking in order to
to the city etc. Welcome
Points (PdA): 18 PdA were instituted close by toll-gates, uniformly distribute on the city the inconvenience of buses
train stations, airports and the main interregional roads. movements. It was decided to simplify the problem diviThe XV World Youth Day was, without any doubt, the
most important event of the Great Jubilee during 2000. It
implied a massive effort by each involved body which
operated together with Extraordinary Government Office
for the Jubilee to plan organising scenarios. The event took
place from August 15, 2000 to August 20, 2000 and
interested several places in the city of Rome. It can be
divided in two phases: 1.Preliminary
days for the Spiritual preparation, involving about 600.000 young people, consisting on: the opening ceremony on
August 15, 2000 in San Giovanni in
Laterano square and in San Pietro
square; Preliminary Ceremonies during
August 16-17-18 in each dioceses of the
city; “Jubilee Pilgrimage” from San Pietro square to Circo Massimo.
2.Celebrations of the XV World Youth
Day during Saturday 19 and Sunday 20
taking place in the dedicated area of
Tor Vergata involving about 2.000.000
young people.
1
XV World Youth
Day
Welcome Points:
PdA 1: Casello Roma Nord
PdA 2: Casello Roma Est
PdA 3: Casello Roma Sud
PdA 4: Casello Roma Ovest
A1 Roma/Fir
enze
PdA 88
PdA
Flaminia
Flaminia
PdA 11
PdA
CaselloRoma
Roma Nord
Nord
Casello
PdA 99
PdA
CassiaVeientana
Veientana
Cassia
PdA 5: Pontina
PdA 6: Appia
PdA 7: Tiburtina
PdA 8: Flaminia
PdA 9:
9
GRA 10
PdA11,12,13
PdA11,12,13
Stazioni FS
FS
Stazioni
PdA 12:
PdA 13:
2
GRA 14
A24 Roma/L’Aquila
PdA 17
17
PdA
Casilina interno
interno GRA
GRA
Casilina
PdA 44
PdA
Casello Roma
RomaOvest
Ovest
Casello
PdA 19
19
PdA
Tuscolana interno
interno GRA
GRA
Tuscolana
17
2R
A1
19
PdA 16
16
PdA
Casilinaesterno
esternoGRA
GRA
Casilina
16
PdA 33
PdA
Casello Roma
Roma Sud
Sud
Casello
om
h
ecc
av
ivit
a/C
GRA 30
SA2
SA2
Laurentina
Laurentina
ia
GRA 26
PdA 55
PdA
Pontina
Pontina
5
PdA 15
15
PdA
Ciampino
Ciampino
Aeroporto
Aeroporto
SA1
SA1
Anagnina
Anagnina
6
PdA 66
PdA
Appia
Appia
Stazione Termini
Stazione Ostiense
Stazione Tiburtina
PdA 22
PdA
CaselloRoma
Roma Est
Est PdA 15: Ciampino Aeroporto
Casello
7
SA4
SA4
Termini
Termini
10
4
PdA 11:
PdA 77
PdA
Tiburtina
Tiburtina
SA3
SA3
Saxa Rubra
Rubra
Saxa
PdA 10
10
PdA
Aurelia
Aurelia
Cassia Veientana
PdA 10: Aurelia
8
3
18
PdA 16:
PdA 17:
Casilina esterno GRA
Casilina interno GRA
PdA 18:
Tuscolana esterno GRA
PdA 19: Tuscolana interno GRA
Area Secretariats:
SA 1: Anagnina
SA 2: Laurentina
SA 3: Saxa Rubra
SA 4: Termini
Services
A1 Roma/Napoli
PdA 18
18
PdA
Tuscolanaesterno
esternoGRA
GRA
Tuscolana
Polizia stradale
Vigili urbani
Volontari
12
AIROnews
JUBILEE AND OR
ding it in a set of correlated sub-problems. The city was
partitioned in 5 continuous and adjacent geographic zones.
Zones were defined in order to be homogeneous in the
number of lodgings and parking areas. In this way each
lodging place and each parking area had a unique assigned
geographic zone. For each zone was defined a transport
model as described above considering constraints 1) and 2)
in addition to flow equilibrium and arc capacity constraints.
Total lodging places were about 500, total long-parking
areas were 51 and total tourist buses flow to move was
about 11.000.
Allocation of short-parking areas. Objective of the model was
assigning parking areas to each bus arriving from a PdA
minimising the total cost. The cost function in this case had
three components: the first one considering the distance
between the origin and the destination, the second one
considering the distance between the parking area and Tor
Vergata, the third one considering the activating cost of
parking areas. Constraints of the model were the same of
each sub-problem above described. Total short-parking
areas were 45 corresponding to a capacity of about 8000
buses.
Definition of route from PdA to Parish Secretariat
The goal was minimising the impact on urban traffic. In
order to analyse the problem, we used the set of tools as
GIS environments and a specialised software made to manage the planning of a Large Events (See AIROnews, IV,
n.4 and V, n.1, "Mobility Planning Support for Large
Events", Part I-II). The result of this analysis, the set of
routes, were then stored in a database.
Instructions to pilgrims
We could manage, obviously, only the booked groups. In
the case of XV World Youth Day, the database of booked
groups counted about 500.000 people. (Note: this data is
referred to first day of August). For the most cases this
people came to Rome at the beginning of the week. For
each group, in the Situation Room of the Jubilee, we have
prepared a "Travelling Form". These Forms were for informing each group about: the assigned PdA and the arrival
time to it; the assigned parking area; the description of the
route from PdA to Parish Secretariat; general information
on the event and how to move through the city; the assigned
Parish Secretariat and the arrival time to it; the description
of the route from Parish Secretariat to Tor Vergata Area. A
database with data about groups and mobility resources has
been developed in order to build the forms. Then we have
developed some procedure (VB language) to manage the
data and compile the forms as report. Travelling Form idea
is not new during the Jubilee. We have tested it in previous
Large Events but only for the XV World Youth Day the
project has been so complex: the Travelling Form unifies in
a unique object all the elements of the mobility plan.The
good result of this method depends, above all, by the
following facts: the quality of information of booked group;
the capacity of sending the Form from the organiser of the
event to each group of pilgrims. These two points are,
generally, independent from the staff who planned the
mobility and its control can be very difficult. The experience
in Situation Room, after the set of Large Evens occurred till
now, is positive and this approach will be adopted for next
Large Events of Jubilee too.
Monica Gentili,
[email protected]
Fabrizio Guerrieri,
[email protected]
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
EURO Summer Institute (ESI) XIX
Toulouse, France, 9-22 September 2001
Subject
Decision Analysis and Artificial Intelligence
Scope
EURO Summer and Winter Institutes (ESWI) are organised to encourage good social and working relationships
among promising young OR scientists in Europe. One
important purpose of a EURO Institute is to establish a
network of promising young researchers (normally aged
25-35) who will continue to work together in future, e.g.
as a working group. The participation is limited to a
group of about 25. Participation is an honour and a
person can be a participant in an ESWI only once in
her/his career.
Activities
At the Institute there will be lectures given by invited
speakers, but the main emphasis will be on the participants' presentations and on the discussion about the
papers. A special issue of EJOR (European Journal of
Operational Research) will be prepared based on papers
presented at the Institute. EURO considers the social
activities to be most important for the success of the
ESI, since it is through these activities that friendships
can develop and a scientific network can be established
for co-operation in the future. For this purpose, the
organisers of this French ESI will prepare a varied social
program.
Location and expenses
ESI XIX will take place in Toulouse, a lovely town in the
South West of France, at the Campus of Université Paul
Sabatier. The cost of stay at the ESI (scientific programme, accommodation, meals, and social activities) is
covered by EURO and other sponsors. The participants
will have to cover the costs of travel expenses to Toulouse. However, EURO encourages the National OR
Societies to give support to their participants to cover
these costs.
Schedule
Deadline for submission of papers to the National Societies: to be decided by each National Society (for AIRO:
February 28, 2001). Deadline for submission of information about the candidates by the National OR Societies to ESI: 31 March, 2001. Announcement of selected
participants by the Scientific Committee of ESI: 30
April, 2001.
For more information please see:
http://www-poleia.lip6.fr/~perny/ESI2001
For AIRO, papers must be sent to:
Sig.ra Agnese Martinoli
Segreteria AIRO
Via Serretto 1/4, 16131 Genova.
13
AIROnews
NEWS WORLDWIDE
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
Novità Editoriali
Operational Reasearch
Peripatetic Post-graduate
Programme
A EURO conference for young researchers
September 26-29 2001, LAMSADE - Paris, France
Deadline Submission: March 1, 2001
WHAT IS ORP3 ?
ORP3 is the new instrument of EURO designed for young
OR researchers and practitioners. ORP3 aims at being a
forum promoting scientific and social exchanges between
the members of the future generation of Operational
Research in academia and industry. ORP3 is an European
peripatetic conference since each edition will be welcomed
by a different laboratory from EURO. ORP3 is a postgraduate programme since the organisation of the conference is entirely in the hands of young OR researchers.
WHO IS CONCERNED ?
If you are a PhD student or graduated within two years
before deadline submission date or if you are an OR
analyst with at most two years professional experience at
deadline submission date, submit to ORP3! There is no
imperative themes: every kind of OR papers are welcome.
WHY SHOULD I SUBMIT ?
Full refereed proceedings will be at http://www.orp3.com
and possible EJOR special issue (subject to the acceptance
of the editors) for the best papers. ORP3 is an exchangebased conference oriented towards discussions and training with a limited number of participants, special sessions
(tutorial sessions and sessions devoted to Research
Methodology and Philosophy).
HOW DO I SUBMIT ?
Four copies of your paper and an abstract must be sent to:
Denis Bouyssou, ESSEC BP 105
95021 Cergy-Pontoise cedex, FRANCE
e-mail [email protected]
tel +33 1 34 43 30 73,
fax +33 1 34 43 30 01
SOME MORE INFORMATION ?
web : http://www.orp3.com
e-mail: [email protected]
For specific organisational information, please contact
Sophie Toulouse
LAMSADE - Universite Paris 9 Dauphine
Place du Mal de Lattre de Tassigny
75775 Paris cedex 16
tel +33 1 44 05 44 09
fax +33 1 44 05 40 91
For specific information concerning the programme, please contact
Denis Bouyssou
Ottimizzazione
Paolo Serafini
2000, Zanichelli
pp. 548
ISBN 88-08-09059-0
£84 000
L’ottimizzazione affronta il problema di come risolvere
modelli matematici che descrivono sistemi gestionali complessi, tramite tecniche algoritmiche.
Questo testo intende fornire quelle competenze professionali necessarie per progettare tali sistemi, con una chiara
consapevolezza della portata dei modelli e degli algoritmi
utilizzabili.
Il volume si articola in una parte iniziale dedicata ai presupposti matematici e informatici (teoria dei grafi, complessità
computazionale e analisi convessa) ed in una seconda parte
che tratta i principali argomenti dell’ottimizzazione: teoria
della dualità, programmazione lineare (metodo del simplesso e algoritmi ai punti interni), reti di flusso, programmazione dinamica, ottimizzazione combinatoria, combinatorica poliedrale, programmazione lineare intera (algoritmi
sia esatti che euristici) e programmazione non lineare.
La materia è esposta cercando di inquadrare i diversi
risultati in una teoria coerente ed unificante, secondo una
progressione dai problemi facili verso quelli più difficili. Il
libro è corredato da molti esempi e da una serie di esercizi
intercalati alla trattazione teorica.
Modelli e Metodi per l'Organizzazione
dei Sistemi Logistici
Gianpaolo Ghiani
Roberto Musmanno
2000, Pitagora Editrice Bologna
pp. 400
ISBN 88-371-1204-1
£49 000
Il volume si propone di fornire un’introduzione agli aspetti
metodologici nella progettazione e gestione dei sistemi
logistici aziendali. Esso si rivolge prevalentemente agli
studenti dei Corsi di Laurea in Ingegneria, Scienze Matematiche ed Economia, e presuppone la conoscenza dei
concetti e dei metodi basilari della Ricerca Operativa (in
particolare, l’ottimizzazione lineare e discreta) e del Calcolo
delle Probabilità. Il filo conduttore del volume è l’applicazione piuttosto che la metodologia di studio. Pertanto, i
vari argomenti sono raggruppati e presentati in base alla
loro collocazione nei processi decisionali piuttosto che
rispetto ai metodi di risoluzione. Il volume è corredato da
esercizi completamente svolti e da una rassegna di casi
aziendali, che mirano ad illustrare come le tecniche presentate possono essere convenientemente adattate per affrontare e risolvere con successo situazioni reali più complesse.
Al termine di ciascun capitolo è inoltre proposta al lettore
una guida ragionata per successivi approfondimenti.
14
AIROnews
NEWS WORLDWIDE
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
CRIFOR
DIPARTIMENTO di INGEGNERIA del TERRITORIO
Centro di Ricerca e Formazione per
l’Ottimizzazione su reti
Il CRIFOR, Centro di RIcerca e Formazione per l'Ottimizzazione su Reti, è un centro di ricerca e formazione,
istituito presso il Dipartimento di Ingegneria del Territorio, DIT, dell'Università di Cagliari, per favorire la collaborazione di ricercatori italiani e stranieri con lo scopo di:
−
−
−
−
−
−
sviluppare ricerche teoriche e applicative nel campo
dell'Ottimizzazione su Reti;
coordinare progetti di ricerca nazionali ed europei
sui fondamenti dell'Ottimizzazione su Reti e sulle
principali applicazioni, con particolare riferimento
alla gestione del territorio, alle reti idriche, elettriche,
di comunicazione e di trasporto;
promuovere programmi di formazione post-laurea e
post-dottorato sui fondamenti e sulle applicazioni
dell'Ottimizzazione su Reti;
analizzare, produrre e rendere disponibile software
di Ottimizzazione su Reti anche attraverso interfacce grafiche orientate alle applicazioni per l'accesso amichevole al software di Ottimizzazione su
Reti;
organizzare e gestire un sito internet dedicato all'Ottimizzazione su Reti, per l’accesso ad informazioni
su: ricerca, applicazioni, programmi di ricerca, attività formative e materiale didattico;
organizzare, attraverso lo stesso sito, la presentazione e distribuzione del software di base e applicativo comprensivo dei problemi test e dei risultati
sperimentali ottenuti.
Il CRIFOR intende essere una struttura di ricerca aperta
all'apporto della comunità scientifica nazionale e internazionale ed alla collaborazione con enti di ricerca, università
e industrie per il perseguimento dei propri obiettivi. A tal
fine intende attivare accordi di cooperazione scientifica,
nazionale e internazionale.
Il CRIFOR si avvarrà di un Consiglio Scientifico Internazionale, CSI, per la valutazione periodica dei programmi e
dei resoconti dell'attività scientifica.
Il CRIFOR, per quanto riguarda la raccolta e lo sviluppo
di software applicativo, si orienterà inizialmente nei seguenti settori:
•
sviluppo di software per la gestione e pianificazione
dei sistemi di risorse idriche in ambito territoriale
Piazza D’Armi I-09123 Cagliari, ITALY
Tel. +39 070 6755320 Fax: +39 070 6755310
E mail: [email protected]
•
•
•
•
esteso;
sviluppo di software per il dimensionamento ed il
monitoraggio di reti di distribuzione idrica;
sviluppo di software per la gestione di reti automatizzate di comunicazione (Internet, telefonia cellulare, broadcasting radio-televisivo, ecc.);
sviluppo di software per la gestione e la progettazione di reti di trasporto con particolare riferimento
al trasporto di merci, trasporto aereo, trasporto non
standard di persone (scolastico, trasporto aziendale,
trasporto di portatori di handicap, trasporto a domanda debole, dial-a-ride, trasporto plurimodale di
persone e merci, ecc. );
sviluppo di software per la localizzazione e allocazione (di depositi e magazzini, di impianti, organizzazione dei processi di produzione, ecc.).
Il CRIFOR intende raccogliere, validare, sviluppare, sperimentare e rendere disponibile il software di Ottimizzazione su Reti garantendone correttezza, efficienza e portabilità. A tal fine il sito internet sarà a disposizione di singoli
ricercatori, centri di ricerca e sviluppo e istituti di formazione superiore per l'accesso al software ed alla documentazione d'uso. Il software sarà gestito dal gruppo di sviluppo del CRIFOR.
Le principali attività previste nel prossimo futuro, alcune
già avviate, sono:
organizzazione della pagina web: materiale didattico, materiale scientifico, software di base per l'ottimizzazione su
reti, accesso a software specialistico, problemi test e risultati raggiunti;
predisposizione di corsi di formazione, dal livello regionale
a corsi per particolari obiettivi formativi, ecc.;
collaborazione all'organizzazione di convegni scientifici, tra
i quali AIRO2001, Netflow2003, ...;
organizzazione di stages e visite.
Per adesioni ed ulteriori informazioni contattare
Stefano Pallottino
([email protected]) o
Paola Zuddas
([email protected]).
15
AIROnews
CALENDAR
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
Events of 2000
November
December
November 16-17, 2000
EWG Financial Modelling
(New York, USA)
e-mail: [email protected]
December 14-17, 2000
EWG Locational Analysis
(Barcelona, SPAIN)
e-mail: [email protected]
November 23-24, 2000
Giornate AICE 2000
(Milano, ITALY)
Dr.a Franca Lia Brambilla
Istituto di Metodi Quantitativi
Università Bocconi
Viale Isonzo 25, 20135 Milano
tel: +39 02 58365632
fax: +39 02 58365634
December 10-13, 2000
2000 Winter Simulation Conference
(DisneyWorld, Orlando, FLORIDA)
Keebom Kang
Department of System Management
Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA 93943-5103
tel: 831 656 3106
fax: 831 656 3407
e-mail: [email protected]
November 23, 2000
Journée Industrielle Roadef sur le thème de l'Evaluation
de la Qualité dans les Services
(Paris, FRANCE)
LAMSADE, Université Paris Dauphine
Place du Marechal De Lattre de Tassigny
75 775 Paris Cedex 16
tel: 01 44054434
fax: 01 44054091
e-mail: journee.qualite@ lamsade.dauphine.fr
http: //www.dauphine.fr/qualite/
December 15, 2000
ISCS 2000 - Italian Society for Computer Simulation
(Lecce, ITALY)
Raffaela Mirandola
Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”
Dipartimento di Informatica Sistemi e Produzione
Via di Tor Vergata, 00133 ROMA
tel: +39 06 72597381
fax: +39 06 72597460
e-mail: [email protected]
http://remlab.dis.unina.it/iscs/iscs_hp.htm/
Events of 2001
January
January 7-9, 2001
12th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium of Discrete Algorithms (SODA)
(Washington, D.C., USA)
http: //www.siam.org/meetings/da01/
March
March 5-7, 2001
2001 IEMS and 28th ICC&IE Joint Meeting
(Cocoa Beach, Florida, USA)
Fax: (209) 667-3210
E-mail: [email protected]
March 15-18, 2001
9th International Conference on Telecommunication
Systems, Modeling and Analysis
(Dallas, USA)
Ms. Dru Lundeng
ATSMA, Inc., Edwin L. Cox School of Business
Southern Methodist University
P.O. Box 750333
Dallas, TX 75252, USA
May
May 9-12, 2001
FRANCORO III
16
AIROnews
CALENDAR
(Québec, CANADA)
http://www.fsa.ulaval.ca/francoro/
May 28-30, 2001
ECCO-XIV
(Bonn, GERMANY)
http://www.prism.uvsq.fr/~vdc/ECCO/
June
June 11-12, 2001
DONET Summer School on Integer and Combinatorial Optimization
(Utrech, NETHERLAND)
e-mail: [email protected]
http://www.cs.uu.nl/events/ipco2001/
June 13-15, 2001
IPCO VIII Integer Programming and Combinatorial
Optimization
(Utrech, NETHERLAND)
e-mail: [email protected]
http://www.cs.uu.nl/events/ipco2001/
June 13-19, 2001
TRISTAN IV Triennial Symposium on Transportation Analysis
(São Miguel, Azores Islands, PORTUGAL)
José Paixão
e-mail: [email protected]
http://www.fc.ul.pt/tristan4/
June 30-July 8, 2001
Workshop on High Performance Algorithms and Software for Nonlinear Optimization
(Erice, ITALY)
e-mail: [email protected]
July
July 9-11, 2001
EURO XVIII - 18th European Conference on Operational Research
(Rotterdam, THE NETHERLANDS)
http://www.euro2001.org/
July 11-13, 2001
V, n.3 - Autumn 2000
ICN'01 - IEEE International Conference on
Networking
(CREF, Colmar, FRANCE)
tel: +33 (0)389202366, fax: +33 (0)389202359
e-mail: [email protected]
http://iutsun1.colmar.uha.fr/ICN01.html/
July 16-19, 2001
MIC’2001 - 4th Metaheuristics International Conference
(Porto, PORTUGAL)
e-mail: [email protected]
http://www.mic2001.com/
September
September 4-6, 2001
OR 43
(Bath, UNITED KINGDOM)
Chris Barret
Operational Research Society
12 Edward Street, Birmingham B1 2RX, UK
tel: +44 121 233 0321, fax: +39 070 6755310
e-mail: [email protected]
http://www.orsoc.org.uk/
September 4-7, 2001
AIRO 2001 Annual Conference
(Tanka Village, Villasimius, Cagliari, ITALY)
Prof.ssa Paola Zuddas
Dip. Ingegneria del Territorio - Sezione Idraulica
Piazza d'Armi - 09123 CAGLIARI
tel: +39 070 6755320, fax: +39 070 6755310
e-mail: [email protected]
http://pcserver.unica.it/AIRO2001
September 26-29, 2001
ORP3 - Operational Reasearch Peripatetic Postgraduate Programme
(Paris, FRANCE)
Denis Bouyssou, ESSEC BP 105
95021 Cergy-Pontoise cedex, FRANCE
tel +33 1 34 43 30 73,
fax +33 1 34 43 30 01
e-mail: [email protected]
http://www.orp3.com