ISyE Magazine 2024

INDUSTRIAL & SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

Building Upon a Solid Foundation WELCOME NEW FACULTY OPTIMIZING THE TRANSPLANT SYSTEM ISYE HOSTS TWO CONFERENCES ON THE UNIVERSITY CAMPUS

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Industrial and Systems Engineering DEPARTMENT HEAD ARCHIS GHATE DIRECTOR OF GRADUATE STUDIES KEVIN LEDER DIRECTOR OF MASTER’S PROGRAMS

KRISHNAMURTHY IYER DIRECTOR OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES

LISA MILLER DIRECTOR OF FACULTY AND ACADEMIC AFFAIRS

JEAN-PHILIPPE RICHARD INTERIM DEPARTMENT ADMINISTRATOR

KATHERINE LINDSAY

DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING 207 Church St. SE Minneapolis, MN 55455 isye@umn.edu (612) 624-1582 www.isye.umn.edu

FROM THE DEPARTMENT HEAD

I joined the University of Minnesota as the Department Head of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) this year.

ISyE is a young department, about a dozen years old. In this short time, we have built a vibrant community of renowned scholars, exceptional teachers, amazing students, and dedicated staff. We are home to 18 faculty, about 200 undergraduate students, and about 90 graduate students. ISyE is committed to supporting the well-being and professional growth of all its constituents.

Our faculty and students work on methodological problems in optimization and stochastic systems, with applications in manufacturing, healthcare, transportation and logistics, energy, and economics. You may find us working on treatment plans for cancer; matching algorithms for organ transplants; policies for housing allocation; optimizing power flow in energy grids; analyzing online markets; scheduling patient surgeries; and calculating pricing strategies. Examples of such projects are included in this magazine. Regardless of the particular problem, we aspire to discover the mathematical theories that explain its salient features.

ISyE is entering a new era of growth in research, education, and service.

In collaboration with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, the School of Statistics, and the School of Mathematics, we now offer a new bachelor’s degree in Data Science. ISyE recently launched an M.S. program in Data Science in Operations Research. We plan to recruit a diverse group of students in large numbers to these programs, and to maintain an emphasis on data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning in our work. Our Ph.D. student population is also steadily increasing. Our goal is to proportionally increase federal, state, and other funding to support these Ph.D. students. As we grow, ISyE is working with our advisory boards and alumni to raise funds for undergraduate and graduate scholarships.

Our undergraduate students participate in hands-on capstone projects sponsored by local organizations, which helps them find a career after graduation. They are recruited by well-known employers such as 3M, Accenture, Boeing, Boston Scientific, Deloitte, Hewlett-Packard, Palantir, and Target. We hope to further expand this employerbase by adding more technology, finance, and sharing economy companies into the mix. ISyE’s location in a metropolitan area is a big advantage - opportunities for collaboration are only a few steps away. We plan to leverage these to build new partnerships so that our work is informed by, and influences, industry practice. Our students, academic programs, and capstone projects are featured in this magazine.

With support from the College of Science and Engineering, ISyE intends to build upon its solid foundation to reach new heights of excellence. We invite you to join us on this exciting journey!

ARCHIS GHATE DEPARTMENT HEAD 01

CONTENTS 06

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EFFICIENT AND EQUITABLE HOUSING ALLOCATION

ISYE IN MANUFACTURING AUTOMATION

Assistant Professor Nick Arnosti receives the NSF CAREER Grant, and focuses on researching the efficiency and equitability of housing programs.

ISyE alumnus Sam Boraas shares how the M.S. in ISyE, System track has helped him grow in his career.

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FROM ISYE TO META OPTIMIZING THE TRANSPLANT SYSTEM

Ph.D. student You (Zoe) Zu’s studies in optimization research and Game Theory leads her to a position at Meta.

Assistant Professor Saumya Sihna studies the allocation process and policies of organ transplants to improve accessibility.

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MY ISYE STORY: FELIPE SIMON

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Ph.D. student Felipe Simon explains why he chose the ISyE department, and how it will shape his future.

GROWTH AND EFFICIENCY IN THE CLOUD Assistant Professor Martín Zubeldía and Ph.D. student Yishun Luo collaborate to improve the operational efficiency of data centers.

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WHAT DEFINES US Undergraduate student Josh Ichen shares his story of his time in ISyE and how his studies helped him discover what defines us.

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ISYE LEAVES INDELIBLE MARK AS CONFERENCE HOST ISyE hosts two conferences at the University of Minnesota in 2024 Network Science and Economics, and INFORMS MSOM 02

ISYE WELCOMES NEW FACULTY MEMBERS In Fall 2024, ISyE welcomed 4 new faculty members to its department, including a department head.

ARCHIS GHATE, DEPARTMENT HEAD AND PROFESSOR Dr. Archis Ghate joins the department as the Department Head and Professor, and brings a fresh perspective to the community.

Ghate received a Ph.D. in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an M.S. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford. He completed his undergraduate education at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

His research focuses on theory, models, and algorithms for optimization under uncertainty. He likes to study problems that call for analytical techniques from real and functional analysis, convex optimization, statistics, control, and applied probability. Ghate’s methodological work has applications in health care, transportation and logistics, manufacturing, economics, and business analytics. A big portion of his applied work has focused on cancer treatment optimization problems.

Ghate was excited to join the department because the research and educational programs at ISyE fit well with his interests. He found the department to be very collegial, and was drawn to the urban location of the campus, which offers plenty of opportunities for collaborations. He is interested in academic leadership and the department head position offers an opportunity to serve faculty, staff and students in ISyE. Ghate looks forward to initiating new research collaborations with ISyE faculty, and he wishes to make new friends for life.

Ultimately, Ghate is hoping that his research and teaching portfolio will expand the technical knowledge-base in the department. He enjoys working with students and is looking forward to recruiting doctoral students to his group. Ghate is hoping that he can help the department grow by applying lessons learned from his prior service experiences with faculty hiring and mentorship, and undergraduate and graduate program development.

L. JEFF HONG, PROFESSOR Dr. L. Jeff Hong joins ISyE as a professor. With over 20 years in higher education, Hong brings an experienced level of expertise to the department.

Hong received his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences from Northwestern University. He also received an M.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Cincinnati, and Bachelor’s degrees in Industrial Engineering and Automotive Engineering from Tsinghua University, China.

With past experience as a professor within Business schools and colleges, Hong is excited to return to engineering as a focus of teaching and research. Hong’s research interests center on Operations Research and Machine Learning. He also works with stochastic simulation and optimization. In the past, he has explored research in various fields such as financial risk management, supply chains and 03

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logistics, as well as healthcare and climate change. He is also focusing on the new area of the “digital twin” as an innovative tool.

“On one side, my research is applied mathematics, and on the other is engineering. We have these interesting tools in our hands, and we apply those tools to the problems we see. These problems also help create new tools.”

Hong was hired to the department in January 2023, but deferred his start date for a year. He, however, is eager to begin his time in ISyE. “ISyE is a great department. Operations Research and Analytics are a major focus in our department, and I believe this department is one of the best. The department’s international reputation is also well perceived.”

Equally, having been in Asia for 20 years, this move to Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota is a welcome change that also brings him closer to his children, one of whom is studying at the University.

Hong knows the department will help him to expand his knowledge and research interests, and he looks forward to collaborating and working on interesting problems with others in and outside of the department. Hong is eager to bring new ideas and enrichment to the department in regards to research and education.

LIYAN XIE, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR Dr. Liyan Xie joins the department as an Assistant Professor, teaching IE3521 (Statistics, Quality, and Reliability) and bringing new and exciting research to her students and fellow faculty.

Xie received her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, and her undergraduate degree in Statistics from University of Science and Technology of China. She also comes with experience as an Assistant Professor in the School of Data Science at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen.

Xie’s research focuses on developing methodologies that can handle online data so that data can come in an efficient way. Considering online data can possibly be unpredictable, the methodologies she develops help to identify these anomalies as quickly as possible while still maintaining efficiency and robustness. Another element of her research is using generative models (similar to ChatGPT), which can help generate synthetic data. These generative models train and perfect the methodologies decision-making ability and other elements of the process. These methodologies are transferable and adaptable to other application domains, and help breach the gap between theory and the practice. Her research bridges across areas including healthcare, manufacturing and neuroscience.

For Xie, moving to Minneapolis and working for the University of Minnesota was a big decision. The prestige of the University and the department were a major draw for her. And upon visiting the campus last winter, she was pleased by the department's culture and community. Moving to Minnesota also brings her closer to her current collaborators, as well as her husband who works in Chicago.

Along with expanding her professional community, there are great potential collaboration opportunities in and outside the department of ISyE, and she is eager to be mentored by the senior faculty in the department.

Xie hopes to bring new research perspectives to the department by leveraging her experiences in online data analysis, and through departmental and university collaborations. Equally, Xie really enjoys teaching, so she looks forward to engaging with undergraduate students and teaching them problem solving skills. She also looks forward to working with graduate level students creating new special topics courses that add new and positive opportunities for the graduate level students, as well as helping them develop their researching skills.

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SHANCONG MOU, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR Dr. Shancong Mou joins the department as an Assistant Professor. He is eager to join a dedicated environment where his research and career can develop.

Mou received his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. He also holds an M.S. in Computational Science and Engineering. Before coming to the U.S. for his graduate studies, Mou received his Bachelor's degree in Energy and Power Engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University (XJTU).

Mou’s research is focused on Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) enabled data fusion for complex engineering systems, including (but not limited to) advanced manufacturing systems.

“We fuse the engineering knowledge, AI/ML methodologies, as well as optimization research techniques for better system modeling, which enables further quality and productivity improvement through monitoring, diagnostics, control and design optimization.”

The motivation for his research stems from real and important industrial problems, and he aims for further methodological development in the AI/ML domain to better solve those problems. Along with fellow collaborators, Mou has been working with several leading companies on projects including quality monitoring in personal electronics manufacturing, developing robust learning for label-efficient monitoring of high-dimensional data with Apple; quality and productivity improvement in composite fuselage assembly process, a critical process in modern airplane manufacturing, utilizing PDE-constrained optimization for design and optimal control with Boeing; and control and design optimization in composite material and semiconductor manufacturing processes, leveraging physics-informed machine learning.

Mou’s history with the University of Minnesota began during his Bachelor's degree. “UMN and XJTU are academic partners. When I was an undergrad, I was lucky to work with Prof. Wenquan Tao, who studied at UMN.” Equally, the University of Minnesota and the Minneapolis area provide great collaboration opportunities in Mou's research domain. With these and the supportive department culture, high quality research and excellent faculty members Mou is excited for his tenure in ISyE. He hopes to bring a new research direction and increase collaborative research opportunities. Mou is also looking forward to offering new courses in his expertise domain, such as advanced topics in informatics in production and service systems, physics informed learning, and robust learning.

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FEATURES

EFFICIENT AND EQUITABLE HOUSING ALLOCATION Since beginning his journey in the department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Assistant Professor Nick Arnosti has showcased his passion for humanitarian research. Most recently, Professor Arnosti has been awarded the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Grant. This 5-year award will allow Arnosti to research the efficiency and equitability of the housing programs in the United States. His proposal specifically focuses on four topics related to housing allocation housing voucher issuance, housing voucher portability and exchange, applicant prioritization, and policies intended to reserve assistance for particular applicant groups.

For Arnosti, this research poses theoretically interesting problems that can be impactful to so many in need of housing. With the goal of using the resources already available to the housing authorities instead of creating new ones, his research focuses on two goals that are often invoked but rarely defined: efficiency and equity. In seeking to achieve these goals, he looks to learn from current systems in other domains such as school choice, medical residency matching, and organ allocation.

An Interest Begins

Arnosti’s interest in affordable housing allocation began when he was a professor at Columbia University. He and his coauthor Peng Shi (University of Southern California), Marshall School of Business) were interested in analyzing the housing lotteries in New York City. Their paper “Design of Lotteries and Wait Lists for Affordable Housing Allocation" notes that applicants have an incentive to apply to as many buildings as possible, and to take whatever they are offered.

Those who are lucky enough to win an apartment have little say in where they end up. Arnosti and Shi show that the outcomes from this lottery are equivalent to those that would result from operating a waiting list in which applicants get a single offer, and those who reject this offer are moved to the back of the list. By allocating apartments with little regard for family preferences, these systems are wasting a precious resource. Arnosti and Shi examined several alternatives designed to grant applicants more say over where they will live.

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This work by Arnosti and Shi focused on housing created through New York’s “Inclusionary Zoning” laws, and on federal public housing. Arnosti’s proposal seeks to study some of the many other programs that provide affordable housing to those in need.

Housing Choice Vouchers One of the programs in Arnosti’s proposal is the housing choice voucher program, which provides rental assistance to approximately 2 million households. The federal government provides the funding for this assistance, but vouchers are awarded and managed by thousands of local housing authorities.

Housing Voucher Issuance Once a voucher is provided, the voucher recipient must find a landlord who is willing to rent to them. This can be challenging due to factors in the recipient’s past (such as poor credit or past evictions), and stigma by landlords against voucher recipients. Exacerbating this problem is that vouchers are typically issued for a limited term (often 3-4 months).

If a participant cannot find housing within this time frame, the voucher is taken away and given to someone else.

This policy is intended to maintain high voucher utilization: a voucher being reserved for an applicant does no good to anyone while the applicant searches. However, a consequence of this policy is that applicants who have the greatest difficulty finding housing on the rental market are less likely to benefit from the voucher program.

“People should have an equal chance,” Arnosti explains, “but can only benefit if they can find housing. Those who can’t will struggle. This is a source of bias which is not the fault of the housing authority, but is exacerbated by the policy of taking away vouchers after a period of unsuccessful search.”

Arnosti proposed an alternative, which would allow people to continue searching for as long as they need. To maintain high utilization, more applicants could be authorized to search for housing at any one time. He believes that this approach could simultaneously improve voucher utilization while ensuring a more equitable distribution of vouchers.

Housing Voucher Exchange Households that are supported by vouchers may choose to move. In this case, the voucher can travel with them. While this fact helps many households every year, it also creates headaches for housing authorities. If a household moves from Saint Paul to Minneapolis, for example, Minneapolis is in charge of inspecting the new rental property and paying the landlord, but the money to support the voucher still flows through Saint Paul. Therefore, every month Minneapolis must send a bill to Saint Paul. In the Twin Cities alone, there are 10 different housing authorities, and these authorities bill each other for thousands of households every month.

Arnosti proposes “voucher exchange” as a solution. In cases where Minneapolis is billing Saint Paul for one household, and Saint Paul is billing Minneapolis for another, why not exchange responsibility for these households, and eliminate both bills? Housing authorities occasionally make such exchanges, but they happen intermittently, and only involve two authorities at a time. Arnosti believes that the benefits would be much larger if these exchanges were conducted more systematically and involved all of the housing authorities in the region.

While exchange could offer immediate administrative relief to housing authorities, it also has potential long-term consequences. Paradoxically, Arnosti’s proposal shows that in some cases, conducting frequent voucher exchanges can actually lead to more billing down the line! In other cases, voucher exchange can shift the rate at which different waiting lists move, resulting in more people benefiting from the voucher program. Arnosti seeks to identify the circumstances under which these effects occur, in order to ensure that voucher exchange programs do not have unintended consequences.

Other Research Focuses Shortly after joining the University of Minnesota, Arnosti joined Hennepin County’s Coordinated Entry Leadership 07

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Committee. Coordinated Entry is a program that refers people experiencing homelessness to non-profit organizations that offer housing assistance. The Leadership Committee is a group of advisors who offer feedback on the county’s referral policies.

One important question facing the county is, when a spot opens up, which of the many homeless people should receive the referral?

Arnosti is currently working with the county to conduct an analysis of its existing policies. Arnosti’s proposal will study policies designed to minimize the size of the homeless population. Another crucial consideration in this context is avoiding inadvertent racial bias, but there are not agreed upon definitions of bias or how to measure it. Arnosti hopes to collaborate with Hennepin County to tackle this issue proactively.

The fourth area of research in the proposal studies policies that seek to reserve housing for specific groups. Arnosti draws inspiration from programs in New York City, where each building has apartments set aside for applicants of different income levels, applicants from the local community, applicants with disabilities, and municipal employees. It can be challenging to implement these policies simultaneously, and seemingly minor procedural modifications can have significant consequences. Arnosti plans to research policies similar to those in New York City, to better understand their effects.

CAREER Grant Goals Within the five years of the grant, Arnosti has multiple goals. One is to have a direct impact on the world. By collaborating with partner organizations like counties and housing authorities, Arnosti seeks to help these organizations do more with the limited resources they are given: serving more clients, offering clients greater choice, and ensuring that assistance is distributed equitably.

Arnosti sees several avenues for immediate collaboration, and anticipates that others will be discovered as the work progresses.

A second goal will be to analyze novel theoretical questions inspired by these collaborations. In some cases, this will mean investigating questions which may not directly influence policy, but instead provide foundational work that future researchers could build upon. This work will be done in collaboration with ISyE graduate students.

“I care about having an impact, but am also excited by the theoretical aspects of the projects. Ultimately, I am a mathematician at heart, so I look forward to thinking through new models, doing simulations and data analysis, and solving complex math problems. It should be fun!”

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OPTIMIZING THE TRANSPLANT SYSTEM ISyE faculty member Saumya Sinha studies the path of organ allocation and addresses how it serves everyone.

Since her Ph.D. in Applied Math and subsequent postdoctoral work, Saumya Sinha, an Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Minnesota, has been driven by meaningful, high-impact research. Sinha’s work on optimizing the organ transplantation system addresses an important problem: How to design organ allocation systems and policies to improve transplant access?

With regulations always evolving, today’s transplant system is designed to prioritize those who need an organ most urgently. Sinha’s work focuses on optimizing this system.

Most recently, the idea of fairness has entered into her work.

“If no transplant hospital is nearby when a deceased donor organ becomes available, that organ is wasted.

Equally, some areas of the U.S. do not have any transplant hospitals, so a patient in those areas might not have access to a life-saving transplant.” Studying these scenarios and their outcomes promotes a transplant system that is geographically and socioeconomically equitable.

Although there have been incremental improvements in federal regulations regarding organ transplants, Sinha notes that “even if regulations remain fixed, their appropriateness will change because the medical field is changing.”

She explains that technological advances, organ transportation, and organ preservation are always improving and evolving. Sinha’s work and collaborative efforts with organizations such as M Health, the NSF Engineering Research Center for Advanced Technologies for the Preservation of Biological Systems (ATP-Bio), and the University of Minnesota Institute for Engineering in Medicine are all about informing positive changes in policy that can lead to system-wide benefits.

Sinha came to her research focus serendipitously.

“I was looking for a postdoc with an applied focus,” she recalls. “I luckily found an opportunity with someone with a long history of research in healthcare and, in particular, organ transplantation.”

This work had her collaborating with physicians trying to understand how federal regulations impacted the behavior of transplant centers, such as hospitals that perform transplants. At the time, there were a set of regulations physicians claimed were stifling innovation and hurting patients instead of helping them.

“Our work aimed to analyze this mathematically,” she says. “Could we find evidence through mathematical modeling and data analytics to support the physicians’ claim?”

Sinha looks forward to continuing to explore the federal regulations of the organ transplant system.

“I am interested in exploring how new regulations are better than what was there before—what are the shortcomings that persist and could modification or other regulations improve upon these aspects?” she remarks. “I’m also excited to explore the technological improvements in transplant biomedicine. Whenever technology evolves, it will affect how the system operates. I am broadly interested in how developments in technology interplay with regulations and allocation strategies in the transplant system as a whole.”

With its long history of operations research and systems level analysis, the world of organ transplant drives research that makes a difference.

“There is a direct practical benefit,” Sinha reflects, “but at the same time, the inherent complexity of the system makes it fertile for methodological innovation. Policymakers recognize the value of the research methods and findings. Even a small improvement is an actual life saved.”

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GROWTH AND EFFICIENCY IN THE CLOUD

For the past year ISyE Assistant Professor Martín Zubeldía and ISyE Ph.D. student Yishun Luo have been working together to find ways to improve the operational efficiency of data centers, sometimes also known as the Cloud. Originally spurred by Luo, the topic aligns with Zubeldía’s background in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, as well as his passion for theoretical and algorithmic work.

Zubeldía likens their work on improving efficiency of data centers to the progression of the telephone. The first telephone network had people manually connecting cables to link different telephones, which was good enough for very small networks. This would not work today because of the sheer number of connections that we make every day, so telephone connections had to be made more efficient in order to meet the demands of the users. In the same way, the exponential growth in the demand for data center processing capabilities necessitates a similar increase in operational efficiency.

“Luo was interested in how data centers operate and how to make them more efficient. In particular, he was interested in reducing how much computers need to communicate with each other without sacrificing performance. With this goal in mind, Luo developed a new load balancing algorithm that has computers communicate much less with each other and still achieve the same performance levels.”

“The amount of data and service requests has grown exponentially, and older algorithms aren’t good enough because they don’t scale up appropriately. We have to keep up with the level of demand and develop more efficient algorithms in order to meet this growth in demand.”

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These efficiency improvements not only appease the user, whether you are streaming, downloading or uploading images and videos, or are a gamer, but it also allows the companies to save money and energy, and invest in their users. Initially an ISyE master’s student, Luo’s enthusiasm for learning and his self-driven mentality was what Zubeldía finds most enjoyable about working with Luo. Zubeldía is very impressed with Luo coming up with this research direction, and with the new algorithm. This shows that Luo has the qualities that will make him an excellent Ph.D. student. Zubeldía is eager to continue his work with Luo and to see him grow as a researcher.

Luo explains that the idea for this project emerged almost serendipitously.

“As I was experimenting with simulations on various queuing models—exploring different approaches just to see what might work—a surprising result surfaced. With Professor Martín’s insightful guidance, this discovery evolved into the heart of our research. I am deeply appreciative of my time as a master’s student in our department, which allowed me to take Ph.D. level courses, broadening my understanding of advanced optimization and stochastic models with the guidance of our exceptional professors. Working alongside Professor Martín has been particularly rewarding; he has not only directed my research, but has also demonstrated the qualities of a committed, passionate researcher. His dedication to inquiry and mentorship has profoundly influenced my approach to research, and I look forward to learning even more from him as I continue my academic journey. Looking ahead, I’m excited to continue making meaningful contributions—pursuing research that drives our field forward with creativity and impact.”

For Zubeldía, his research and teaching are all about the theoretical and algorithmic tools that can be used broadly in many application domains. He knows that these tools are important for student growth, and can be applied to future projects in the students’ careers.

“To learn the tools and be able to apply them anywhere is important. You don’t know where you are going to end up after your Ph.D. - it could be in a finance company, and then at a company like Amazon. All of these companies have different issues, so if you have a good education in the fundamentals, then you can go to any company and make a positive impact. The application domain comes from the company, but we should be able to provide the solution.”

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ISYE LEAVES INDELIBLE MARK AS CONFERENCE HOSTS ISyE hosts two conferences at the University of Minnesota in 2024 Network Science and Economics, and INFORMS MSOM.

Network Science and Economics Conference Sponsors

INFORMS MSOM Conference Sponsors

The conference was such a great opportunity to showcase the University of Minnesota and Minneapolis.

- Karen Donohue, CSOM

2024 Conference on Network Science and Economics On April 19-21, 2024 the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering hosted the 9th annual Network Science and Economics conference. In sponsorship with the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the University of Minnesota’s Data Science Initiative, Economics department, and College of Science and Engineering the conference took place in Kenneth Keller Hall on the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities campus.

Local organizers included professors Ankur Mani and Krishnamurthy Iyer of ISyE, and professor David Rahman of the Economics department. Series organizers included Ozan Candogan (University of Chicago), Arun Chandrasekhar (Stanford University), Ben Golub (Northwestern University), Matthew Jackson (Stanford University), and Sudipta Sarangi (Virginia Tech).

The University of Minnesota and Industrial and Systems Engineering was selected to host the conference in October 2022 at a small workshop on Digital Social Networks, held at Fondation des Treilles in Southern France and organized

by Professor Francis Bloch.

Professor.

Following the workshop, ISyE Professor Ankur Mani followed up with Professor Jackson and other series organizers to learn about the details of the conference and collectively decided to host the conference.

This conference featured recent research on social and economic networks by roughly 100 researchers and professionals from all over the world, and focused on how network science applications are used everywhere for depicting the structure of interactions and preferences in various social and economic settings. These applications can succinctly represent economic and financial linkages among firms and businesses, adoption of new products via wordof-mouth, and the spread of epidemics. Their prevalence has led to extensive cross-disciplinary research in recent years, combining expertise from operations research, economics, marketing, and computer science.

The conference consisted of a single track on the first day, and three tracks on the second and third day. A poster session was also held on the second day, which featured work from 12 researchers. A dinner was also held at the Weisman Art Museum, highlighting the sense of the community and camaraderie this group held. One attendee remarked that this conference was even a representation of network science itself – people from various disciplines interacting and collaborating as friends and colleagues in a social setting.

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2024 INFORMS MSOM Conference ISyE hosted the 2024 INFORMS Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (MSOM) conference on the University of Minnesota campus June 30 - July 2. The three-day conference attracted over 540 attendees and took place in the McNamara Alumni Center and the Graduate Hotel. It also featured a reception at the Weisman Art Museum and a dinner at The View event space.

The INFORMS MSOM Society’s aim is to “promote the enhancement and dissemination of knowledge, and the efficiency of industrial practice, related to the operations function in manufacturing and service enterprises.” The first day of the conference hosted a Special Interest Groups mini-conference, which consisted of research talks on the topics of Healthcare; the Interface of Finance, Operations and Risk Management (iFORM); Service Management; Supply Chain Management; Sustainable Operations; and Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship (TIE). Days two and three were set as the main conference, and had almost 400 research talks across 17 parallel tracks that reflected research in the areas of Healthcare, Behavioral Operations, Supply Chains, Service Operations, Sustainability and Socially Responsible Operations, Revenue Management and Finance, and TIE. Along with the various talks presented at the conference, it was announced that three society members were named as a MSOM Distinguished Fellows - Mor Armony (New York University), Saif Benjaafar (University of Michigan; former ISyE Department Head), and Vishal Gaur (Cornell University).

The conference committee consisted of former ISyE Department Head Saif Benjaafar; ISyE professors William Cooper, Krishnamurthy Iyer, Nick Arnosti, Sherwin Doroudi and Ankur Mani; Carlson School of Management professors Karen Donahue, Anant Mishra, and Tony Cui; and Temple University professor Guangwen Kong. Together the committee submitted a proposal to the MSOM Society Board in April 2022. This was in response to a Call for Proposals that the Board released. The Board evaluated the proposal and selected ISyE and the University of Minnesota to host the conference.

It was great to work with CSOM faculty to plan the conference and I hope this will serve as a springboard for future collaborations in areas of common interest.

- William Cooper, ISyE

ISyE Professor and Conference Co-Chair William Cooper remarks on the collaborative efforts of the conference: “It was a pleasure to work with so many amazing people. On the organizing committee we had faculty members from ISyE, from CSOM, and from other universities. We had absolutely essential contributions from ISyE staff members. We were in frequent communication with board members of the INFORMS MSOM Society, who were really helpful. It was a great team effort.”

CSOM Professor and Conference Committee Member Anant Mishra states, “This MSOM Conference was an amazing experience for all those who attended. I have been hearing high praise about the quality of the organization, the presentation rooms, the space, the food et al. from the attendees. I am glad this was such a success! I am also glad that this conference enabled two fantastic groups here at the U (the ISYE and CSOM faculty) to work together as a part of the committee to host the conference. Looking forward to many such engagements in the future.”

Operations Management has long been a major research focus area for a number of ISyE faculty members. Hosting the conference was a great opportunity to bring additional attention to this. It was also a chance to showcase the University of Minnesota campus and the city of Minneapolis to members of this academic community.

GRADUATE PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

Program Growth ISyE launches innovative program to meet evolving industry demands - M.S. in Data Science in Operations Research.

The Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Minnesota is expanding its academic offerings to keep pace with its growing faculty, staff, and student body. Starting Fall 2024, ISyE will introduce a new Master of Science degree in Data Science in Operations Research (DSOR).

This cutting-edge program focuses on core competencies in optimization, statistics, computing, data analysis, and communication. It welcomes students from diverse backgrounds, including engineering, applied or pure mathematics, computer science, statistics, and basic sciences.

The DSOR program equips students with the skills to leverage data for generating practical business insights and making informed decisions. At its core, the program emphasizes the use of data to drive better decision-making processes.

Krishnamurthy Iyer, ISyE Associate Professor and Director of Masters Programs, explains that the DSOR program is part of a growing suite of data science programs at the University of Minnesota. "It contributes to an environment of shared focus while emphasizing the application of data science for improved decision-making across diverse business and operational contexts," says Iyer.

He highlights the program's unique aspect: "Our program stands out by focusing on how to use data science to make better decisions. We train students through the complete pipeline – from working with and analyzing data to modeling and extracting insights. The key question we address is not just what we can learn from the data, but how we can use that knowledge to inform decision-making."

The introduction of this program responds to the increasing prominence of data science in industry. "Data science has become a highly sought-after skill set," Iyer notes. This shift in industry preferences means DSOR graduates will enter the job market with a valuable and marketable degree. "There is significant demand for data science graduates, and DSOR students will be exceptionally well-prepared to meet that demand."

The DSOR program replaces the previous M.S. in Industrial Engineering (Analytics) degree, reflecting the department's commitment to staying at the forefront of industry trends and academic innovation.

Learn more about the DSOR program by scanning the QR code.

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ISYE IN MANUFACTURING AUTOMATION With an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from North Dakota State University, Sam Boraas began his master’s studies in 2019 and graduated with the M.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering in the Systems Engineering track in spring 2023. He is now the Director of Mechanical Engineering and Advance Engineering for Critical Handling Solutions (CHS) at PAR Systems.

Based in Shoreview, Minnesota, PAR Systems designs and builds custom automated manufacturing systems used in a variety of fields including healthcare, aerospace, and the nuclear industry. As the Director of Mechanical Engineering and CHS Advance Engineering, Boraas oversees the mechanical engineering department for advanced manufacturing and critical handling solutions, and oversees engineering support for creating proposals for the design of custom systems.

Boraas started working for PAR Systems in 2008 as a contractor and has risen through several positions at PAR since then. He saw a chance to advance his career through the University of Minnesota’s Systems Engineering program. He was drawn to the possibility of tailoring his coursework to the specific needs of his career path. He was especially interested in broadening his understanding of how to manage software and controls from a systemlevel perspective. As his work role at PAR shifted over time, Boraas became more interested in the business side of things. The flexibility of the Systems Engineering program allowed him to adjust his coursework to meet that interest. Boraas comments that “[the flexibility] was one of the greatest parts of this degree program because it offers people such as myself an opportunity to morph the degree into what works best for them, for their career.”

Photo Credit: PAR Systems

The curriculum also allowed Boraas to gain a new perspective on aspects of systems engineering. For instance, he notes that “(t)he coursework helped me see the process better through our customers’ eyes… I got an opportunity to actually develop customer specification documents myself, and I realized how difficult it is and how hard it can be for customers to try to explain what they need when that's maybe never been built before.” Through his coursework, he also expanded his knowledge of accounting, finance, and management.

Boraas’ advisor and ISyE Professor William Cooper recalls Boraas’ time in the department and his career now: “It is great to see the interesting things that Sam is working on at PAR. For me, one of the most rewarding parts of my job is to see such successful graduates.”

Ultimately, Boraas’ time in ISyE was a fulfilling experience that was immediately applicable and valuable in his career. With a strong desire to stay with PAR Systems, Boraas knows that his degree will help him continue to excel in his current position as well as open opportunities for growth in the future.

FROM ISYE TO META ISyE Ph.D. student You (Zoe) Zu’s studies lead to a position at Meta.

As an undergraduate student pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, ISyE Ph.D. student You (Zoe) Zu discovered her passion for optimization and complex problem solving. The rigorous aspects of practical applications led her to the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities to obtain her Master’s of Science degree in Statistics.

The appeal of optimization research led her to join the ISyE department in 2019 as a Ph.D. student. “During my early years of the courses in operations research,” Zu explains, “I was introduced to fundamental concepts of optimization and in supply chain management, which immediately captivated me and my interest deepened when I took my undergraduate thesis, which focused on the bi-level optimization project. This advanced area of study involves solving optimization problems that contain other optimization problems as a constraint. [. . .] it combines a theoretical rigor with practical applications.

[The ISyE program] has allowed me to apply what I had learned in a meaningful way.”

The ISyE fundamental courses and the course in Game Theory impacted Zu the most because both helped her to understand and further her passion for making optimal decisions. The courses also provided a level of rigor and range of learning that greatly appealed to her.

Equally, the department’s culture and size allowed for opportunities to connect with many other professors and peers who have a wide range of research areas. Zu notes that these connections even stretch beyond her fellow Ph.D. peers.

Not only was she drawn to the culture of the department, but the department’s professors aligned with her research interests - Bayesian Persuasion and Information Design.

As Zu explains, Information Design “studies how information can be strategically used to influence decision-making processes, particularly when the sender has more information than the receiver and can control the flow of that information.”

Specifically, Zu’s research is about information sharing in dynamic environments including online platforms and marketplaces, and remarks that the appeal of information design stems from the interest in various applications of the theoretical strategies that she learned and has used throughout her research journey.

Zu’s interests in her research seeded from her first project with Associate Professor Krishnamurthy Iyer as a Ph.D. student, which focused on learning to persuade on the fly - robustness against ignorance, and it has

been recently accepted by the journal Operations Research.

“It introduced me to the fascinating work of information design and how to design the strategies that can effectively influence the decision-making process.”

This initial project led to later collaborations with other ISyE professors and an expert in Information Design in the University of Chicago’s Computer Science department. Professor Iyer, who is also Zu’s Ph.D. Advisor, also remarks on Zu’s journey through her research and the program: “It has been a wonderful experience advising Zoe, and seeing her mature as a researcher over the years. She's been extremely productive during her doctoral studies, publishing two conference papers and a journal paper, and having a few manuscripts in submission. At the same time, she has been able to get valuable industry experience through various internships. She has thus made perfect use of the time during her PhD as a launchpad for a successful career ahead.”

As Zu nears the completion of her Ph.D. journey and defends her dissertation in September 2024, she notes the challenge of finding a job in the current job market.

Thankfully, the program best prepared her for her 2024 summer internship at Microsoft, which has led to full time employment at Meta in Washington state where she will begin as a Research Scientist working on resource management projects on the Monetization Ads Ranking team. Ultimately, Zu looks forward to her new position and using all she has learned while in the department.

MY ISYE STORY: FELIPE SIMON I don’t think there is a straight path to a Ph.D. In my case, it probably started during my last year of undergraduate program at Universidad Católica de Chile when I read the book Who Gets What and Why by Al Roth. As an Industrial Engineering major, I was taught about how to optimize processes. For example, I learned how to manage inventories, analyze queues, route vehicles and every other classic example from an Industrial Engineering curriculum. It hadn't occurred to me that markets could be seen as a different form of these problems until I read Roth's book.

Roth's work illustrates how various everyday items and services are allocated without the use of money, emphasizing how small rules shape behaviors and outcomes. For example, when assigning students to schools, parents are asked to list their preference. From a purely Industrial Engineering perspective, if we wanted to maximize the number of students that get their first choice, we could easily write an optimization for this task and call it a day. People, being the clever creatures that we are, might realize that if their most preferred school is also highly demanded they might be better off not reporting it in their preference and put a safer choice as their first option. By being too optimization-focused we gave parents an incentive to cheat the system. (For anyone curious on how people came up with a way to incentivize parents to report their preferences truthfully, I highly recommend exploring Professor Nick Arnosti’s class IE 5285).

Once I realized how these seemingly simple and wellintentioned rules made a substantial impact on how things are allocated, I started noticing them everywhere. I wanted to study more of these systems and decided to go to graduate school. I applied to the University of Minnesota (UMN) because the Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) department has people that work on the type of problems I am interested in.The program seemed very flexible, this would allow me to explore topics that are not often studied in a typical Industrial Engineering program.

This convinced me that UMN would be a nice fit for me.

Soon after my arrival in Minnesota I started working with Professor Nick Arnosti. After a period of exploration we decided to study how resources are allocated to households experiencing homelessness. In particular, we wanted to know how different prioritization rules lead to different levels of unhoused populations. We found simple prioritizations that were quite effective. I have presented these findings at a couple of conferences, which has allowed great opportunities to meet people with similar interests and to travel around the country.

Post-graduation I want to go back home to Chile and find a position in a university so I can continue exploring these problems. I am sure that I will find new systems to analyze back home with what I learned at ISyE. One problem that has already caught my attention is how cities allocate seats for their free or inexpensive community education classes among neighbors. These classes are always in high demand so having a fair allocation should be a priority. I am excited about teaching these allocation mechanisms because they affect our everyday life, whether we notice them or not.

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INDUSTRIAL AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

A PROGRAM OF OPPORTUNITY

Two ISyE Master’s students remark on their time in the program and how it offers a unique opportunity to advance their lives and careers.

The department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Minnesota offers two distinct Master's degrees, M.S. in Data Science in Operations Research and M.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering, Systems Engineering track and Industrial Engineering track. Each degree program is carefully crafted to fit student needs and interests, as well as offer an exciting curriculum that positions students for career advancement in a wide variety of industries.

ISyE Master’s students Roman Lidyaev (2025) and Bryan Runyon (2024) discuss their journeys through their coursework and how the program is preparing them for their life and careers after graduation.

Roman Lidyaev Lidyaev joined the M.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering, Systems Engineering track in 2023 after receiving his first Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering.

He ultimately joined the program because of the broad scope and course flexibility including courses taught in various departments within the College of Science and Engineering, and Carlson School of Management.

“The broad scope of the program, along with the course offerings and online/classroom options allow for growth and exploration. The interdisciplinary approach to the program as filled in the gaps of knowledge I was not exposed to in my previous programs or my career experience. This knowledge is invaluable and sets this degree apart from others.”

Along with the knowledge learned from the program, Lidyaev has also seen the value in understanding the higher education system through the Teaching Assistant position for Teaching Assistant Professor Kathryn Wust. Equally, he knows that the program allows him to build his career portfolio, which is an applicable asset for industry needs.

With past and current experience in the Systems Engineering field, Lidyaev notes that the flexibility the department offers is what makes the degree favorable for those in a full time position who desire to return to a degree-seeking program.

More importantly, however, the faculty within the department create a positive and understanding atmosphere.

Lidyaev reflects, “The professors stay on top of the requirements that industries look for, and as a student you feel valued.”

Bryan Runyon For Runyon, ISyE is the qualitative side of engineering and a discipline that offers the opportunity to see the big picture.

His engineering career, however, didn’t begin in ISyE. Runyon’s academic journey began with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering.

The M.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering, Systems Engineering track, however, offered multiple opportunities for Runyon.

“I always wanted to go to the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, and the department offered a unique opportunity for me because it seemed to be designed for working people.”

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He notes that the program requires no thesis and can be successfully completed with only coursework.

The department also allowed Runyon to continue to work while completing his degree in a timely and meaningful manner.

“Working and going back to school is such a hard commitment to make. But ISyE is flexible, offers diverse electives and required courses, and the professors are understanding of the fact that most of us have full time jobs,” Runyon explains.

He remarks that it made the choice to return for a Master’s degree less intimidating.

For Runyon, it is this flexibility that is also an advantage to the degree and its marketability in the workplace.

“Many of my peers are already working in the Industrial and Systems Engineering field, so being able to defend and choose electives that support our interests and current jobs is a huge asset of the program,” says Runyon.

Both Runyon and Lidyaev agree that the flexibility of the program is what makes it stand out compared to the rest, and equally both agree that the valuable coursework and the board scope give it a unique and marketing asset.

“The degree allows me to work in so many industries,” says Lidyaev.

“ISyE is also becoming an in-demand degree, which also makes it worthwhile,” explains Runyon.

Ultimately, for Lidyaev and Runyon the M.S. program allows them to further their education and careers. And with the flexible options regarding coursework and learning styles, as well as the approachable departmental community, the program provides all M.S. students the opportunity to be a part of the robust and growing program.

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UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

WHAT DEFINES US

I2024 Senior Josh Ichen shares the story of his journey through ISyE and its impact on his future.

Class of 2024 senior Josh Ichen enrolled in the University of Minnesota after growing up in a small town in Wisconsin.

He originally planned to major in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, which stemmed from family ties.

“My dad’s uncle was an astronaut, so he flew into space when I was a junior or senior in high school. I saw that and thought ‘This is awesome! I want to do this!’”

In the COVID year of 2020, however, he started to look inward at what his career would be like after college, and eventually he made the choice to switch to ISyE. Ichen liked the idea that it was a mix between engineering and business, but it wasn’t until his first course called “Foundations of Industrial and Systems Engineering” with ISyE Teaching Associate Professor Darin England that he knew for sure that he was in the right place.

Ichen likes ISyE’s focus on making things better. He also appreciates his interactions with ISyE faculty members.

“The professors are so committed to their students, and students get to know their professors on a personal level,” says Ichen.

He recalls a collaboration with Professor Nick Arnosti after taking the “Engineering the Allocation of Public Resources” course, where he had the opportunity to research a website that served as a community for board gamers. Through this

website, people organize "math trades" (trades of used games). Each month, people list games they are willing to trade, and indicate which other games they would be willing to accept in return. Then an algorithm called "trade maximizer" is run to determine who trades with whom. Ichen and Arnosti obtained roughly 6 years of trade data, and used it to study how different trading algorithms compared. Together Ichen and Arnosti then looked at scenarios where this method would be beneficial to use and compared it to other allocation methods. This research project eventually led to a research report, summarizing the findings.

Fingers crossed the build goes well, and they are expecting to be completed before the winter is over.”

Before Ichen’s graduation, he received two exceptional honors. The first was the Dr. Alan L. Eliason Undergraduate Achievement in ISyE Award. This award, which is made possible by a generous gift by College of Science and Engineering graduate Dr. Alan Eliason, each year recognizes ten ISyE undergraduate students who have excelled in areas such as leadership, academics, community impact, and innovation. For Ichen, however, the meaning of this award goes beyond the scholarship. This award reflects his hard work and dedication, and is a true point of pride for him. He was also proud to see nine additional peers who were equally as deserving receive this award.

Ichen has been able to work on projects that make a direct impact. For example, he applied a shortest path algorithm that he learned in his first ISyE course to Minneapolis crime data to find the shortest and safest path through campus. This algorithm could directly impact future University of Minnesota students because, in an entrepreneurship class, Ichen turned his idea into an app that was selected as one of the top five pitches in the class. In doing so, he was given the opportunity to work with University of Minnesota students from departments in software development, marketing, and finance to build the app and a website supporting it. The app called SmarterWALK is kneedeep in development. In late November, Ichen and his team will meet with the University Campus Safety Committee to determine the next steps.

Ichen was also selected to be the 2024 College of Science and Engineering Graduation Commencement speaker. Knowing that graduation is an important moment in the lives of graduates and their families, Ichen took to heart the opportunity and platform to discuss an impactful project and message. His speech focused on life after college, encouraging his peers to consider what defines them now and to remind them that grades will no longer be a part of their lives. This idea stemmed from his time in Tanzania.

“I walk through my story of this past year, going to Tanzania and seeing kids just like us, but they don't have access to education or clean water. Experiencing that, I wonder how that feels compared to getting raises or making money; what should define us?”

His most important and impactful experience during his time in ISyE was the College of Science and Engineering (CSE) Global Seminar: “Design for Life: Water in Tanzania”. According to the Global Seminar blog, the program is designed for student teams to make a direct impact on the global community. Ichen and his peers evaluated needs and infrastructures of a small Tanzanian community to model a potable waterhandling system. Eventually the model will be evaluated by a local non-profit organization with the funding and resources to take their project to the next level. Ultimately, this trip served as an inspiration for Ichen.

And for Ichen, things that make real impacts in life are what define us all.

ISyE Teaching Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies Lisa Miller could not be more proud of Ichen and all of his accomplishments as she recalls hearing his speech. “I loved hearing Josh encourage his fellow graduates to think about how they will impact the global community.”

“I credit a lot of my learnings to this project, which is open to all CSE students.”

In August 2024, Ichen began his career as a Manufacturing Engineer with Boston Scientific in Maple Grove, MN. Here he assists in the manufacturing of balloon catheters, which are used to help better patients' lives around the world. His studies in ISyE positioned him well for his new job. Indeed, he credits

In an update Ichen provided in October 2024, “We received full funding for our water project in Tanzania back in May, and just last week they broke ground on building the water system for the village of Makungu.

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the ISyE program with preparing him for his 2022 summer internship with a startup medical company, which he subsequently leveraged to receive an internship at Boston Scientific in 2023. That internship helped lay the foundation for his new permanent position.

Looking back, Ichen states, “It was cool having a community of students who were connected and I cherish the bond we all had together as students, but that couldn’t have been done without the work of the professors. They created the space that we all felt comfortable in.”

Ultimately, Ichen practices what he preaches when he expresses that what defines us all are the impacts we make. It is clear that the department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Minnesota has made an impact on him, but even more so has he made an impact on the department.

Photo Credit: College of Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota

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SENIOR DESIGN PROJECTS Shop Efficiency and Layout (April - October).

Industrial and Systems Engineering seniors Madelyn Gibbs, Sami Kanukunta, Nicholas Reynolds, Connor Salsbury, and Jacob Voorhees worked with Andersen Windows & Doors for their Senior Design project.

Andersen Windows & Doors is a private window and door manufacturer headquartered in Bayport, Minnesota.

The team of ISyE seniors worked to improve the operational efficiency of the Andersen Consolidation Center in Menomonie, WI. The team focused on improving the picking process, window assembly, and floor layout of the Consolidation Center, with the objective of reducing unnecessary waste and improving product flow within the facility. In addition, they sought to decrease processing times and improve worker productivity.

The team began by surveying employees to measure satisfaction with the current facility layout and process flow. In this survey the team found that a majority of facility employees had at least 1 suggested change to the facility. To dive deeper into the primary challenges in the facility, the team created spaghetti diagrams to map common pathways in the facility used by employees in various roles, and they performed time studies to analyze and identify where inefficiencies occurred. The team discovered that workers were making several back-and-forth trips between different locations in the facility to find accessories and put uncompleted projects into storage locations. Upon analyzing the congestion, they saw even more significant issues during the corporation’s busy season

Ultimately, to improve the situation and meet the objectives set out by Andersen, the team hosted a Kaizen event, which “ . . . supports an effective, short-term brainstorming session that focuses on a single challenge and improves an existing process.” This event was held with Andersen employees and stakeholders so that al perspectives were represented and any disagreements could be resolved quickly. During the event, the team presented recommendations that included consolidating racks to include various accessories in order to reduce the number of trips, as well as implementing technology to make sorting and allocating accessories easier. They also concluded that standardizing barcode placement on products would make for easier access and retrieval. Finally, they recommended that organizing the tools in the shop, as well as implementing lift tables and pictures, will ease burdens on employees, improve understanding, and make training more effective.

After the Kaizen event, the team conducted a Paper Doll exercise to mock-up potential redesigned layouts for the shop floor so that product flow could be visualized for different options.

In their Final Report, the team concluded that if elements such as barcodes, lighting, organization elements, tablets, and accessibility features were added, the company could have a cost savings of $35,500; 1,372 working hours; and improve shop utilization by 22% per year.

The team reflected on three lessons they took away from their Senior Design Project: clearly outlining project scope prevents wasting; time management ensures tasks are completed effectively; and continuously leveraging each team member’s experience fosters a culture of improvement and increases overall project efficiency.

Material Flow Optimization For their Senior Design project, Industrial and Systems Engineering students Valerie Cung, Ash Picione, Kade McTighe, Kara Olander, and Corsten Rylicki partnered with Ergotron to help optimize material flow processes in the company’s Eagan facility. Ergotron is a Minnesota-based company that focuses on ergonomic solutions for customer-forward office innovations.

and suitability, and facilitating a decision-making session with Ergotron. Ultimately, two AMRs were selected.

In their Final Report, the team reflected on three lessons they learned from the project. The first was self-guidance, and they state, “Having the freedom to use our knowledge and skills in whatever way we believed would achieve Ergotron’s deliverables let us become much more knowledgeable and confident applying our abilities in a project setting.”

The ISyE team saw an opportunity to reduce the time that assembly workers spend on tasks away from the assembly line and to decrease the end-to-end time it takes to produce a product. To achieve these goals, the team focused on optimizing two areas of the material flow process: the manufacturing supermarket and outflow from packaging.

The second was the importance of effective communication. On this, they learned that holding regular meetings helped to ensure that the team and Ergotron maintained a common understanding of the project’s scope and goals. The third was that projects may bring unexpected challenges. “We went into this project anticipating some challenges, but we were still surprised by a few problems that came our way. . . . this project further showed that resilience is an important ability of any project team to effectively complete their work.”

Ergotron’s manufacturing supermarket is a storage system typically used on an assembly line to store parts that are easily and quickly replenishable. To visualize how the flow of the supermarket worked, the team created a flowmap with software platform Miro.

The team subsequently suggested that Ergotron employ a Kanban system, which would utilize specialized carts with designated bins to streamline inventory management and the replenishment process.

In support of this proposal, the team developed an Excel model to determine how many employees are required to maintain the supermarket. They also suggested applying the 5S principles (sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain) to create two potential layouts that reduce clutter and optimize material flow.

In assessing the state of the outflow from the packaging process, the team created a spaghetti diagram to map and document the existing movement and flows of people and products in the warehouse.

The team discovered that there were no set steps for the packaging process, and proposed standard work processes that would result in smoother operations and, consequently, increase productivity and performance.

The team also suggested manufacturing automation solutions. This suggestion included researching over 50 Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs), narrowing their research to 15 AMRs based on technical capabilities

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2024 SENIOR DESIGN PROJECTS Stratasys

MME Group

“Bridging the Gap Between Stratasys Direct Manufacturing & Stratasys Inc.” Optimize the benefits of internal user testing for new technologies.

“Project Andon” Create an Andon dashboard to show the status of each manufacturing press in a central facility location to improve efficiency.

Mayo Clinic

M Health Fairview & University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy

“Chemotherapy Patients Selection Algorithm for Home Infusion” Develop an optimization model to select and schedule patients to receive in-home chemotherapy treatment.

“UMMC Pharmacy - Missing Medications” Improve workflow and interactions to reduce the number of missing medication messages sent between nurses and pharmacy staff.

Cintas

M Health Fairview

“Spare Parts Storage” Develop and implement standardized organizational strategies and storage guidelines for the critical spare parts.

“Blood Delivery Process Improvement” Provide recommendations to improve deliveries from the M Health Fairview Blood Bank to operating rooms.

United Hospital

Daikin Applied

“Hospital Pharmacy Inventory Optimization” Improve the medication inventory system to reduce stockouts, overstocking, and frequent touchpoints.

“Customer Analytics Case Study” Develop a customer analytics dashboard to aid in strategic business decision making.

Andersen Corporation

Ergotron

“LTL Efficiency and Layout Project” Identify and implement improvements, including facility layout, to picking and assembly processes to reduce unnecessary waste and improve the overall facility flow.

“Material Flow Optimization” Optimize material flow processes to prepare for growth in future demand.

McMillan Electric & West Monroe Partners “Epoxy Department Optimization & Redesign” Analyze and propose improvements to address inefficiencies in the epoxy department.

Become a Senior Design Project Industry Sponsor! Learn more by scanning the QR code.

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DEPARTMENT NEWS AND UPDATES

AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS Dr. Krishnamurthy Iyer 2023 M&SOM Meritorious Service Award awarded by M&SOM Journal Recognizes the outstanding service over the past year for the M&SOM journal and for the professional community in general.

2023 Management Science Meritorious Service Award awarded by Management Science Recognizes the service of reviewers who graciously agree to review many manuscripts and then consistently write timely, unbiased, and thoughtful reports.

Dr. Zhaosong Lu INFORMS Optimization Society 2024 Student Paper Prize Honorable Mention In joint collaboration with ISyE Ph.D. student Sanyou Mei for the recognition of "Accelerated First-order Methods for Convex Optimization with Locally Lipschitz Continuous Gradient".

Dr. L. Jeff Hong

Dr. Shuzhong Zhang INFORMS Fellow Named for contributions to the theory and practice of continuous optimization, including applications in operations research, management sciences, economics, signal processing, and bioinformatics.

Dr. Shancong Mou Mary G. and Joseph Natrella Scholarship Awarded by Quality and Productivity Section of American Society For Quality.

Dr. Lisa Miller & Dr. Kathryn Wust Honorable Mention for the 2024 MHI and CICMHE Student Design Competition 2024 ISyE seniors Madelyn Gibbs, Sami Kanukunta, Nicholas Reynolds, Connor Salsbury, and Jacob Voorhees worked with Andersen Windows & Doors for their Senior Design project "Andersen Windows Shop Efficiency and Layout".

Department Editor of the newly established Simulation Department at Naval Research Logistics.

FACULTY GRANTS Dr. Jean-Philippe Richard Collaborative NSF grant (with collaborators from State University of New York at Binghamton and West Virginia University Research Corporation) This grant focuses on researching the opioid crisis.

Collaborative NSF grant (with collaborators from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health) This award will contribute to the advancement of national health and welfare by developing a comprehensive modeling and solution framework for generating annual rotation schedules for family medicine residents.

Dr. Nick Arnosti NSF CAREER Award See page 6 for more on Dr. Arnosti’s research

Dr. Yiling Zhang NSF's division of Civil, Mechanical, & Manufacturing Innovation Active Award Award for "Collaborative Research: Uncertainty-Aware Multimodal Transit System Design with Shared Mobility under Ambiguous Rider Preferences”.

Dr. Zhaosong Lu Office of Naval Research Award This award is for "Stochastic and Distributed First-order Methods for Big Convex Optimization”. Dr. Lu’s award is for $375,398 across 3 years.

Air Force Office of Scientific Research Award This award is for "Zeroth- and First-order Methods for Bilevel Optimization". Dr. Lu’s award is for $390,965 across 3 years.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS Y. Zu, K. Iyer, and H. Xu, “Learning to Persuade on the Fly: Robustness Against Ignorance.” Operations Research, 2024.

K. L. Wust., P. Carayon., N. E. Werner, P. L. T. Hoonakker, M. E. Salwei, R. Rutkowski, H. J. Barton, P. v. W. Dail, B. King, B. W. Patterson, M. S. Pulia, M. N. Shah, and M. Smith, “Older Adult Patients and Care Partners as Knowledge Brokers in Fragmented Health Care.” Human Factors, 2024.

D. Rutten, M. Zubeldía, and D. Mukherjee, “Distributed Speed Scaling in Large-Scale Service Systems.” ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review, Volume 52, Issue 1, 2024.

M. Brun, T. Perini, S. Sinha, A.J. Schaefer, “On the Strength of Lagrangian Duality for Multiobjective Integer Programming.” Mathematical Programming, 2024.

S. Brown, S. Sinha, A.J. Schaefer, “Markov Decision Process Design: A Framework for Integrating Strategic and Operational Decisions”. Operations Research Letters, 2024.

Z. Lu and S. Mei, “Primal-dual extrapolation methods for monotone inclusions under local Lipschitz continuity”. Mathematics of Operations Research, 2024.

Z. Lu and S. Mei, “First-order penalty methods for bilevel optimization.” SIAM Journal on Optimization, 34(2):1937-1969, 2024.

Y. Wang, S. Mou, J. Shi, and C. Zhang, “Physics-Informed Neural ODE with Heterogeneous Control Inputs (PINOHI) for Quality Prediction of Composite Adhesive Joints”. IISE Transactions, 2024.

UPCOMING HOSTED CONFERENCES Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) Workshop June 3 - 6, 2025 MIP Program Committee: Aleksandr M. Kazachkov (University of Florida), Sophie Huiberts (LIMOS, Clermont Auvergne University), Sebastian Perez-Salazar (Rice University), Christian Tjandraatmadja, Yiling Zhang (ISyE) Local Organizers: Jean-Philippe Richard (chair), Saumya Sinha, Yiling Zhang The Mixed Integer Programming Workshop is an annual single-track workshop highlighting the latest trends in mixed-integer programming and discrete optimization, with speakers chosen by invitation, and poster presentations open to students and postdoctoral researchers. It brings together researchers, students, and industry actors from around the globe, fostering collaboration and providing a showcase for students, early career academics, and developments in industry and novel applications.

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RECENT SEMINARS FALL 2023

SPRING 2024

September 20 Yu-Li Huang, Mayo Clinic “Applying Operations Research and System Engineering Principles to Improve Clinical Practice”

February 21 Larry Snyder, Lehigh University “Teaching "Algorithms and Social Justice" February 28 Weina Wang, Carnegie Mellon University “Recent Advances in Average-Reward Restless Bandits”

September 27 Petar Momcilovic, Texas A&M University “A Probabilistic Approach to Growth Networks”

March 20 Julie Simmons Ivy, University of Michigan “From Data to Decision Making in Health and Humanitarian Logistics: Insights and Challenges”

October 11 Bailey Flanigan, Carnegie Mellon University “Mitigating Manipulation Incentives in Citizens' Assembly Selection”

March 27 Hailong Cui, University of Minnesota “Repair or Replace: An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Diagnostic Decisions on Product Returns in a Bikesharing Platform”

October 18 Douglas Armstrong, Securian Financial “Data Science Applied at Securian Financial: Using Data to Drive Insights” October 25 Christian Kroer, Columbia University “Best-of-Many-Worlds Guarantees for Online Fair Allocation”

April 3 Itai Gurvich, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University “The Value of Information and Cost of Randomness in Dynamic Resource Allocation”

November 1 Rad Niazadeh, The University of Chicago, Booth School of Business “From Offline Greedy Algorithms to Online Learning: Theory and Applications”

April 10 Sridhar Tayur, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University “Implementing Innovations in US Transplantation System”

November 8 Alex Albright, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis “The Hidden Effects of Algorithmic Recommendations”

April 12 Kevin Leder, University of Minnesota “Inaugural Lecture”

November 29 Sebastian Perez-Salazar, Rice University “The IID Prophet Inequality with Limited Flexibility”

April 17 Amitabh Basu, Johns Hopkins University “Information Complexity of Mixed-integer Convex Optimization”

December 6 Kyle Stahl, Cargill Inc. “Machine Learning Operations”

April 24 Andreas Wächter, Northwestern University “A Smoothing-Based Decomposition Framework for Nonlinear Two-Stage Optimization Problems”

December 13 Natalie Sheils, Stealth-Stage Healthcare Startup “A Mathematician’s Career in Healthcare and AI”

May 1 R. Srikant, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign “Why is RLHF Data-Efficient in Policy Optimization?”

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DONOR SPOTLIGHTS

(2023-AUGUST 2024)

$5,000+ Alan L. Eliason

$1,000-$4,999 Stratasys Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers

$500-$999 Jeremiah Johnson

Up to $500 Bonnie Baumgartner Delta Air Lines Benjamin Dimond Bruce Gregoire Swatantra Kachhal

2023-2024 SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS Dr. Alan L. Eliason Undergraduate Achievement in ISyE Award Eliza Bohart Jonathan Cubero Adrika Dasgupta Abigail Donaldson Joshua Ichen Kara Olander Nicholas Reynolds Connor Salsbury Tina Son Alexis Triebold

ISyE Community Scholarship Sophia Han Junehyun Lee

Mahendra Bakshi - Sant Ram Arora Memorial Scholarship Patricija Freiberga

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