ISyE's June Seminar

The Seminar

The latest edition of our ISyE Seminar provided an excellent platform for the exchange of ideas, marking the gathering before the summer break. Two talented researchers, Hannah Verplancke and Sajjad Hedayati, shared their recent work, leaving the audience with fresh insights and thought-provoking discussions.

Hannah Verplancke on "Simulated Annealing Heuristic for the Strategic Assembly Line Feeding Problem”

The Strategic Assembly Line Feeding Problem (SALFP) addresses long-term decisions on facility design and transportation fleet sizing in manufacturing systems. Strategic planning optimization requires incorporating shorter-term tactical decisions such as part feeding policies and route selection.

The resulting integrated problem is computationally challenging for exact solvers. Therefore, we propose a local search heuristic that efficiently solves large-scale instances and supports strategic decision-making in assembly line intralogistics settings.

Sajjad Hedayati on "Context-Aware Problem-Dependent Scenario Reduction for Stochastic Inspection Station Allocation with Delayed Inspection”

In modern production systems, inspection capacity is often planned before the actual inspection workload is known. Planning for the average may leave the system exposed to costly capacity shortages, while planning for the worst case may lead to unnecessary over-investment. This talk addresses that tension through a stochastic optimization framework for inspection station allocation with delayed inspection.

The presentation introduces the Stochastic Inspection Station Allocation Problem with Delayed Inspection (S-ISAPDI), where inspection requests can be postponed across production stages, but their quantities are uncertain at the time of strategic capacity planning. The central question is simple but challenging: how can we design an inspection network that remains efficient when future request patterns are uncertain?

I will show how a two-stage stochastic integer programming model captures this decision structure, and how a context-aware, problem-dependent scenario reduction method based on Stratified Load-to-Capacity Ratios can make the approach computationally practical. The method focuses attention on the scenarios that matter most for capacity decisions, without relying on overly conservative robust optimization.

Together, these presentations showcased the strength and diversity of research within the ISyE community. We would like to thank Hannah Verplancke and Sajjad Hedayati for their excellent contributions and wish everyone a pleasant summer. We look forward to welcoming you back at our next ISyE Lunch Seminar!