Operations Research Party Logistics

Now is that great time of the year when there are a lot of holiday parties including end of the semester parties.

For those of us in academia it is also that time of the year for final projects and papers and final exams and lots of grading.

So one has to be extra efficient and to optimize. Of course, Operations Research is the way to go!

In the last week alone there have been 4 parties to go to and one we were actually involved in helping to organize and that was the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter party that took place at the Isenberg School of Management on December 9.  It is challenging enough putting on a great party when it is at your home but when it is at another location (our business school) plus the temperature is in the teens with a strong wind blowing that certainly adds to the drama. You want to make sure that the hot food arrives hot and that your cookies don't get blown away!

The students, especially the Chapter Officers, did a wonderful job walking around and inviting faculty and staff personally to come. That special touch adds a lot. They also did an excellent job of demand forecasting. I admit there have been times in the past that by 5PM (with the party beginning at 4:30PM) the food was almost gone but not this year. They also produced and circulated the nice announcement below.

Not all of our operations research and management science students have cars so that is also a challenge but, luckily, they can usually find one or two volunteers ready to solve the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) and find the best route for picking up the orders. I always make great use of network project planning techniques such as the Critical Path Method.

Plus, this year's President, Pritha Dutta, has good connections with pizza parlors, and is a trusted customer, and one delivered huge, piping hot pizzas to the Isenberg School for our party.  The pizza went really fast especially the one with tortilla chips on it!

I always say that life in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts is foodie heaven with places such as Whole Foods, Big Y, Atkins, a Turkish market, among other grocery stores and in the summertime - outdoor farmers' markets.  My doctoral student, Deniz Besik, a fellow foodie, and researcher of food supply chains, made sure that there were fruit and veggies on the menu. Plus, this year we had a lot to celebrate! The UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter received the Cum Laude Award from INFORMS (its 11th award in as many consecutive years), and I was so happy to receive the  Distinguished Volunteer Service Award, so we had chocolate cake!

Although it was the end of the semester with extra meetings and office hours, I had to bake for the party and brought a lot of my cookies, with some favorites being Swedish cookies, which always bring me back to Gothenburg, a city in Sweden that I love (besides Stockholm and several others).

And, as is our tradition, varenyky (pierogies) filled with potatoes and cheese, and cabbage mushroom ones, along with kielbasy (all hot), we also brought. Thank goodness there was a parking spot right in front of the Isenberg School that day because in some years I have marched with trays of food for our parking lot as students ran out to help me.

Of course, the ambience for the party is important and we have our favorite location in the Isenberg School, Room 112, for it. The students have music in the background and a slide show of our activities. It is an exceptional way in which to relax, catch up with faculty, students, and staff in a very hospitable and warm environment with great food! Everyone leaves well-nourished, relaxed, and energized, and we share the photos that we take, although sometimes we talk so much we don't take as many photos as we would like.

A special thanks to the faculty who came not only from the Isenberg School on a frigid Friday in December but also from the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and the Department of Civil Engineering from the other side of the sprawling UMass Amherst campus! We even had some family members, including a grandmother from Ukraine. Your support of students and operations research / management science is very meaningful and appreciated.

When I looked at all the students in attendance from countries such as the US, India, Turkey, China, Singapore, Mexico,  Greece, Egypt (but now a US citizen), and even Mongolia, and these are just the ones that I had a chance to speak to in person, I see that there is hope in our United Nations of operations researchers and management scientists!

Happy final exams and Holidays to everyone!

Holiday Cookie Baking in a Kitchen Repaired After the Worst Winter in 180 Years!

Tis the season!

Nothing spells the holiday season to my family and me as the baking of cookies post Thanksgiving.

The cookies we give out to neighbors and friends as a thank you for their friendship throughout the year.

This year, it has been a bit challenging since some of you may recall that the winter of 2015 was the worst winter in Massachusetts in 180 years in terms of snow and record cold temperatures! Plus, there were many homes damaged in the Amherst area due to ice dams on the roofs, including ours.

Luckily, our contractor, who is great and likes us,  managed to repair both our family room and kitchen, both of which sustained major water damage through flooding last winter. Some of the major repairwork began in our kitchen on the first day that I was teaching this Fall and the flooding happened last March. The past few months have been an experience in terms of observing project management in action and all the things that can go wrong (it took 2 months for the new fridge to finally arrive after we placed the order) and also right (we loved the new kitchen floor and granite countertops although our daughter, who is majoring in geology, says that it is actually another kind of rock).

This baking season was the first in which we used our new stove and appliances and, frankly, it took a while to even find some of the baking trays and other items, which had been put away during the repair and remodeling work.

Last night we did the shopping for all the cookie ingredients and this morning woke up with a lot of enthusiasm and the plan in place.

As an operations researcher, I love to do things efficiently and, in that way, you can also get more done in the time allotted!

This morning, with great music in the background, the cookie baking project took place, and soon we will be delivering the first batch.

By lunchtime, most of the cookies were baked and that included the pecan sandies, cherry-centered almond cookies,  chocolate-dipped macaroons, mitten sugar cookies, nut chocolate rum balls, and raspberry jam filled Swedish cookies, the recipe for which I got from my wonderful administrative assistant, Wivvian, back at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden (where I spent the past 4 years as a Visiting Professor).

I love the logistics of baking cookies, from the shopping for the ingredients, to the project layout, to the baking, decorating, and delivery to our neighbors and friends!

It was interesting baking cookies in the new oven but the day was a success.

Holiday Cookie Supply Chains - Putting Operations Research into Practice

This morning I gave the final exam to my Logistics & Transportation students and also collected their project papers, which I am enjoying reading very much.

The field of Logistics & Transportation has so many great applications!

And, since this is the holiday season, it is a perfect time for putting Operations Research into practice by executing my holiday cookie supply chain.

I must admit, since my students have been so good this semester, I spoiled them today. The exam was at 8AM so they needed some support. I brought in the holiday cookies below, which I baked last night after a day filled with meetings. Several of the students used the "carrot" of a cookie as a reward for finishing the exam whereas some indulged even before.

 

The raspberry filled cookies above are Swedish cookies from a recipe that my wonderful Office Manager at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg provided me with (and she even gave me a plate of them that she had baked about a year ago - so special)!

A holiday cookie supply chain just may be the most delicious one - I had to, first,  procure the ingredients: the flour, sugar, confectioner's sugar, vanilla, eggs, plus marzipan, almond paste, candied cherries, M&Ms for decorating (the mitten cookies above), pecans, rum, walnuts, coconut, chocolate, corn syrup, maraschino cherries, and raspberry jam. These are the major ingredients of my holiday cookie supply chain this year. And, of course, you need parchment paper (a savior for professional bakers as well as me since it saves the cookies and reduces cleaning time), wax paper (for rolling out nicely the shaped cookies), cookie baking trays, a rolling pin, cookie cutters,  and nice plates,  wrapping paper, and ribbons for the deliveries.

When we research and teach about  product supply chains I always emphasize the production processes and I have felt like a cookie manufacturer lately.  The production process is very much an assembly line process but there are tasks that one does simultaneously - for example, while batches are baking, I am preparing the next batch. Since many cookies bake quite quickly - such as the ones pictured above (about 13 minutes), one can  do the processing quite efficiently. Plus, rum balls don't need to be baked and are favorites among our neighbors!

Then there is the cooling, and,  in the case of my famous rum balls, it is actually best if they are stored for a few days - so storage is another important activity.

Below are some of the cookies that I have baked this holiday season - all gone!

 Packaging is another enjoyable aspect of processing holiday cookies.

And, of course, distribution is what gets the cookies delivered to the consumers! In my case, so far this year, there have been many deliveries - to our wonderful neighbors, to the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter members and guests at our party last Friday, and to my students today! Plus, rather than just local deliveries, we have also made some shipments through mail.

There is nothing like putting Operations Research into practice for the enjoyment of many! Besides, what is better than playing with dough and decorating cookies during a time in the academic calendar that is quite hectic!

Happy Holidays!

Holiday Cookie Logistics from Baking to Delivery

It is snowing hard here in western Massachusetts and the landscape is beautiful but the temps are not. 

It is frigid outside so what could be better, after having graded final exams (appropriately for a course in Logistics & Transportation) as well as paper projects on topics as varied as Cape Cod traffic improvements to transportation in Buenos Aires to the rotary in Haiti to cement logistics, to name just a few, to do something also very creative -- bake holiday cookies!

Baking and distributing holiday cookies has been a tradition in my family for several years and we have gotten quite skilled at it. Nice that we practice what we preach is terms of efficiency, as well!

Every year it seems that we get busier and busier both professionally and personally but one keeps traditions alive for neighbors and family and finds time to do what needs to be done.


The logistics involve planning, purchasing ingredients, scheduling the baking and decorating,  doing the baking and decorating, and, of course, outsourcing the dishwashing tasks and cleanup. 

Then it is time to do the packaging, the writing of the cards, and the deliverying. Timing of delivery is very important since we want to make sure that the recipients are at home.

As an operations researcher, whether by education (or lifeskills or osmosis as is the case with some of my family members, whose assistance I rely upon in this megaproject), I am well-versed in project planning (especially in network-based techniques), scheduling, finding the best route through the supermarket, and the best routes for cookie plate deliveries.

As for this year's holiday cookie "menu," for now, we have made the following cookies:

• rum balls with walnuts (coincidentally, one of my former undergrad Operations Management majors at the Isenberg School emailed me that he made a batch for his office party this year and they were loved -- special to have students stay in touch even after graduation),
• pecan sandies with powdered sugar,
• Swedish jam-filled cookies from my Administrative Assistant's recipe at the School of Business, Economics an Law in Gothenburg that I spent the major part of my sabbatical at last year (thank you, Wivvian!),
• cherry-filled almond cookies,
• a variety of colored wreaths and candy-cane cookies, and
• mitten butter cookies decorated with M&M's.

To be welcomed by warm smiles as the doors open and we deliver the plates of cookies is truly in the spirit of this season.

Happy Holidays to everyone!