Dr. Ed Klotz

Seminar Abstract:
Most optimization models given to CPLEX solve with no user intervention after being formulated. However, obtaining satisfactory performance on models that are difficult to solve can be extremely time consuming and result in delays to project schedules, thesis completion dates, or any other task with a predictable deadline but unpredictable work requirements. This talk will discuss a set of guidelines to efficiently tune the performance of the ILOG CPLEX Optimizer when the practitioner encounters performance problems. We will examine issues involving speed, memory usage, and the numerical limitations imposed by finite precision computers.

While this talk will focus on the ILOG CPLEX optimizer and the mathematical programming models it solves, most of the concepts discussed will apply to other optimizers, and also to other types of applications that don't involve optimization.

Speaker's Bio:
Ed Klotz is a Principal Technical Support Engineer at ILOG. He joined the CPLEX team in 1991. Since then he has been involved in CPLEX development, training and documentation, but his primary focus has been CPLEX product support. He has given many conference presentations and workshops on the effective use of CPLEX. He obtained a PhD in Operations Research from Stanford University in 1988.

Dr. Mark L. Spearman

Seminar Abstract:
In recent years, companies have begun to realize the severity of the risk facing the entire corporation by not addressing uncertainty in the supply chain. Indeed, a recent survey indicated that more than two-thirds of the companies surveyed had experienced a supply chain disruption from which they took a long time to recover. The speaker will address the reasons and other issues in this talk and also offer a solution known as Dynamic Risk-based Scheduling (DRS).

Speaker's Bio:
Dr. Mark L. Spearman is President and Chief Executive Officer of Factory Physics, Inc., a firm that provides complete productivity solutions in manufacturing and supply chain.? In his former life as an academic, he was Head of the Department of Industrial Engineering at Texas A&M University, Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech and Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at Northwestern University.? He holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering.
For more than 20 years, his research and teaching dealt with improving manufacturing operations and supply chain management. He is coauthor, with Wallace J. Hopp, of the book, Factory Physics that was named the IIE Book of the Year (1998).