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Events

• Oct

  8

  Two-Sided Flexibility in Platforms

  Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences (IEMS)

  11:00 AM Hive Annex, Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center

  EVENT DETAILS

  Abstract: Flexibility is a cornerstone of operations management, crucial to hedge stochasticity in product demands, service requirements, and resource allocation. In two-sided platforms, flexibility is also two-sided and can be viewed as the compatibility of agents on one side with agents on the other side. Platform actions often influence the flexibility on either the demand or the supply side. But how should flexibility be jointly allocated across different sides? Whereas the literature has traditionally focused on only one side at a time, our work initiates the study of two-sided flexibility in matching platforms. We propose a parsimonious matching model in random graphs and identify the flexibility allocation that optimizes the expected size of a maximum matching. Our findings reveal that flexibility allocation is a first-order issue: for a given flexibility budget, the resulting matching size can vary greatly depending on how the budget is allocated. Moreover, even in the simple and symmetric settings we study, the quest for the optimal allocation is complicated. In particular, easy and costly mistakes can be made if the flexibility decisions on the demand and supply side are optimized independently (e.g., by two different teams in the company), rather than jointly. To guide the search for optimal flexibility allocation, we uncover two effects -- flexibility cannibalization and flexibility asymmetry -- that govern when the optimal design places the flexibility budget only on one side or equally on both sides. In doing so we identify the study of two-sided flexibility as a significant aspect of platform efficiency.

  Bio: Sébastien Martin is an assistant professor of operations at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He received his M.Sc. in applied math from Ecole polytechnique (France) in 2015 and his Ph.D. in operations research from MIT in 2019. His research focuses on designing large-scale optimization algorithms for public sector operations and online platforms. His work has been recognized with two Franz Edelman Laureate Awards and the Dantzig Best Thesis Award. He designed Lyft's dispatch algorithm, optimized the school transportation systems of Boston and San Francisco, and created Kellogg's first AI teaching assistant.

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  TIME Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

  LOCATION Hive Annex, Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center    map it

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  CONTACT Kendall Minta    kendall.minta@gmail.com EMAIL

  CALENDAR Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences (IEMS)

• Nov

  15

  Fall Seminar 2024: Adoption of AI in the Travel Industry Featuring Sergey Shebalov

  Master of Science in Machine Learning and Data Science (MLDS)

  3:30 PM Krebs Classroom, Henry Crown Sports Pavilion

  EVENT DETAILS

  Join us for an insightful seminar featuring Sergey Shebalov about the resurgence of Artificial Intelligence. We will delve into real-world use cases, the challenges and opportunities in AI adoption, and the impact of AI on the travel industry.

  Lecture Summary: Artificial Intelligence is experiencing resurrection over the last several years. The number of use cases already implemented in practice and the amount of investment allocated to development and adoption of this technology indicates that this time it's here to stay. While several challenges still remain and some new ones are anticipated the path towards Al becoming as common as computer, smartphone or internet is clear. We will discuss this journey on the example of the travel industry. We'll consider several main applications of Al that already provided significant benefits, a typical process these applications go through from an idea to a full-scale adoption, and the skills required to support that process from the new generation of leaders, scientists, engineers and practitioners.

  Sergey Shebalov is a VP of Data Science and Head of Research at Sabre. He leads the Sabre Labs team responsible for development and implementation of complex Al decision support systems. Sergey holds PhD in mathematics from University of Illinois and has two decades of experience in the travel industry IT. His area of expertise is intelligent retailing,

  resource optimization and adoption of Al in practice.

  Location: Krebs Classroom, McCormick Education Center, 2311 Campus Dr

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  TIME Friday, November 15, 2024 at 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM

  LOCATION Krebs Classroom, Henry Crown Sports Pavilion    map it

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  CONTACT Master of Science in Machine Learning and Data Science Program    mlds@northwestern.edu EMAIL

  CALENDAR Master of Science in Machine Learning and Data Science (MLDS)

• Nov

  19

  Some Applications of Benders Decomposition to Facility Location and Network Design Problems

  Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences (IEMS)

  11:00 AM Hive Annex, Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center

  EVENT DETAILS

  Talk abstract: Benders decomposition is a mathematical decomposition technique designed to solve large-scale linear and mixed-integer programs. Since its introduction in 1962, the approach has been successfully applied to a wide variety of problems arising in supply chain management, transportation, telecommunications, and energy management. Despite its success, however, it has long been overshadowed by dual decomposition methods such as Lagrangian relaxation and Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition. Over the last two decades, one has witnessed a renewed interest in Benders decomposition with the introduction of several novel ideas to improve performance. The purpose of this talk is to give an overview of the main acceleration techniques by focusing on two families of problems where Benders decomposition has proven especially effective: facility location problems and network design problems. After briefly explaining the general methodology and practical enhancements, we will present examples of successful applications to set covering problems and fixed-charge network design problems. In each case, we will focus on strategies for generating strong cuts efficiently, including the application of unified cut generation frameworks and the use of normalization constraints in the dual subproblem.

  Bio: Jean-François Cordeau obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at École Polytechnique de Montréal in 1999. He is a professor of Operations Management at HEC Montréal, where he also holds the Chair in Logistics and Transportation. He has authored or co-authored more than 175 scientific articles in combinatorial optimization and mathematical programming, focusing primarily on vehicle routing and logistics network design. He has also supervised more than 75 M.Sc. and Ph.D. students. Dr. Cordeau is an Area Editor of Transportation Science and a member of the Editorial Board of Computers & Operations Research. He has worked as a consultant for several Canadian and European organizations in the private and public sectors. He is currently one of the scientific directors of IVADO Labs. He received the Canadian Operational Research Society (CORS) Award of Merit in 2016 and the Pierre-Laurin Award for Research Excellence at HEC Montréal in 2018. In 2023, he and ten of his colleagues won the CORS Practice Prize for their work on maritime vessel routing.

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  TIME Tuesday, November 19, 2024 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

  LOCATION Hive Annex, Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center    map it

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  CONTACT Kendall Minta    kendall.minta@gmail.com EMAIL

  CALENDAR Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences (IEMS)

• Dec

  7

  Fall classes end

  University Academic Calendar

  All Day

  EVENT DETAILS

  Fall classes end

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  TIME Saturday, December 7, 2024

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  CONTACT Office of the Registrar    nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL

  CALENDAR University Academic Calendar

• Dec

  14

  Northwestern Engineering PhD Hooding and Master's Recognition Ceremony

  McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

  4:00 PM Pick-Staiger Concert Hall

  EVENT DETAILS

  The ceremony will take place on Saturday, December 14 in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 50 Arts Circle Drive.

  *No tickets required

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  TIME Saturday, December 14, 2024 at 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM

  LOCATION Pick-Staiger Concert Hall    map it

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  CONTACT Andi Joppie    andi.joppie@northwestern.edu EMAIL

  CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science