Robert Bixby


Title of Presentation: From Planning to Operations – The Devil’s in the Details

EURO 2007

Prague, Czech Republic

July 2007


Abstract:

The remarkable improvements in mixed-integer programming software that started in the late 1990’s have continued, unabated. These developments are enabling a new breed of applications to daily business operations and promise to make optimization a more central part of managing a modern enterprise. We will give several specific examples, and examine in some detail one successful, running application for short-interval detailed production scheduling in semiconductor manufacturing. Modern 300 mm semiconductor manufacturing facilities, or Fabs, cost upwards of $4B to construct, and 90-95% of all shop-floor work is now being automatically dispatched in several such Fabs worldwide using optimization.


Bio

BS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, University of California, Berkeley, 1968. PhD in Operations Research, Cornell, 1972. Held positions in The Department of Mathematics, University of Kentucky, 1972-1977, The Department of IEMS, Northwestern University, 1977-1984. Professor of Computational and Applied Mathematics, Rice University, 1984-2000. Held visiting positions at the University of Wisconsin, Cornell Univeristy, The Institute f\”ur Operations Research, Bonn, the University of Augsburg, and the Konrad Zuse Zentrum, Berlin.

Humboldt Senior Scientist Award, 1992. Editor-in-Chief Mathematical Programming, Series A, 1989-1994. Elected to the National Academy of Engineering, 1997. Chairman of Mathematical Programming Society, 2001-2004. Beale-Orchard-Hays Prize of the Mathematical Programming Society for Computational Mathematial Programming, 2000. Chairman of Matheon External Advisory board, 2003-Present.

Co-founded CPLEX Optimization, Inc., 1987 (acquired by ILOG, Inc., 1997). Served on ILOG Board of Directory 1997-2000. President ILOG Technical Advisory Board, 2001-2004. Chief Scientific Officer of ILOG, Inc., 2002-Present. General Manager, ILOG Semicondicutor Business Division, 2006-Present.

Noah Harding Professor Emeritus of Commputational and Applied Mathematics, Rice Univeristy, and Research Professor of Management in the Jones School of Managment, Rice Univeristy.