Adventures in combinatorial optimisation

Abstract

The talk will discuss a range of research projects I have undertaken over the last few years. All the projects are real applications and are all difficult optimisation problems solved through a combination of mathematical modelling and artificial intelligence. The talk will focus on describing the application drawing out the modelling challenges and some insight into what we learnt and how this was used. My intention is that the talk will to give a flavour of my research area, and the interesting challenges, in a way that is accessible to anyone in the school i.e. there is no requirements for detailed knowledge of combinatorial optimisation techniques. Specifically I will look at three projects: loading of helicopters for military missions, optimising revenues for vehicles ferries and how solving the location of farmland in pre-Hispanic Mexico leads to developing zero waste fashion cutting patterns.

About the speaker

Julia Bennell graduated with first class honours in Pure Mathematics and Management Science and went on to study for a Ph.D. in Operations Research in the area of cutting and packing. Specifically her Ph.D. looked at developing optimisation algorithms for the efficient manufacture of garments. She has continued her research interest in cutting and packing and expanded her focus to include problems in glass cutting, container loading and additive manufacturing. She is currently leading the European Working group in cutting and packing that holds an annual conference and has approximately 300 members globally. Julia has also undertaken a range of research projects in scheduling and transportation including projects for airports, rail networks and shipping. She is very active in the UK (ORS) and European (EURO) OR societies currently sitting on the research panel of ORS and is Vice President 2 of EURO.