Exciting Finance Conference on Banking Regulation and Stability at Gothenburg University

I very much like interdisciplinary research and being an operations researcher one is able to explore and also to contribute to different disciplines.

Here at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, where I am a Visiting Professor, I sit in a suite of offices with Transportation & Logistics colleagues and also Finance ones. Since I used to be in the Department of Finance and Operations Management at the Isenberg School (until the number of students really grew and now we have the Finance Department and my Operations & Information Management Department)  I feel so comfortable and welcome here in Sweden.

One of my Finance colleagues in Gothenburg, Professor Ted Lindblom, invited me to a conference that is taking place next week here that I am very excited about and will be attending. Moreover, there will be colleagues from MIT and UConn in attendance and even friends of my Finance colleagues at Isenberg, Professor Mila Sherman and Nikunj Kapadia. I am very much interested in systemic risk issues and that was one of the themes of the Cybersecurity Risk Workshop that Mila, Professor Senay Solak, Professor Wayne Burleson, and I organized last September with support provided by the Advanced Cyber Security Center and also Professor Andrew Lo of MIT.

Below is the program for the Banking conference next week -- looking forward to it! There will also be practitioners in attendance and as speakers. More info is here.

 I'll be reporting on the conference on this blog, so do stay tuned.

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!

A Professor who Loves to Bake and Give Out Cookies

Now that Thanksgiving is over, I engage in one of my favorite activities this time of year -- the baking and distribution of holiday cookies, with help from my daughter.

This year, thus far, we made a variety of delicious cookies from chocolate-dipped macaroons, to rum walnut balls, to butter sugar cookies in the shapes of holiday mittens, to cherry-decorated almond morsels, to start. The planning and completion of this major production involved numerous activities, from the shopping, to the preparation, to the grating, and the mixing, the baking, and the decorating.

I very much enjoy putting into practice what I teach for a living and just before Thanksgiving I covered the critical path method and project planning in one of my classes, which was perfectly timed.

The most fun of all is the assemblying of the plates with the cookies, which are festooned with colorful ribbons, along with a holiday card, and the delivery to our neighbors and friends.

In the photo above are some of the cookies that we baked over several shifts!

For photos of some of the delights from last year, click here.

Holiday Cookies and Operations Research

It's the season of baking and what could be more fun before the end of the semester projects, presentations, and finals than to explore one's creativity in other ways. Once Thanksgiving is over and the turkey is fully digested, my daughter and I begin our holiday tradition of baking cookies for neighbors. This is quite the logistical operation, since we like to always include our tried and true recipes as well as to explore new ones. This year's cookie plates include: coconut chocolate-dipped macaroons, pecan shortbread logs, almond cookies with cherries, shortbread cookies, walnut rumballs, and what we call stained glass cookies (in star formation above), which are my daughter's specialty.

The baking is great fun, as well as the wrapping, but the most fun is when my daughter delivers them door to door (always determining the most efficient route first and identifying when the neighbors are likely to be home). Since she listened (without choice) to my graduate lectures on operations research and management science while in utero she is a natural when it comes to organization and efficiency. Plus, as a child of faculty members, she does tend to absorb the material that we can't help but discuss.

Plates of holiday cookies are a small way in which we acknowledge our terrific neighbors.

As for the family larder, we will have to bake again to replenish the cookie supplies.