Several NDSU students and staff presented research at the annual meeting of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS) in Minneapolis, MN, Oct. 6-9. INFORMS is the largest professional society in the world for professionals in the field of operations research (O.R.), management science, and analytics.
Eunsu Lee, an associate research fellow with the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute chaired a session on supply chain shipping and transportation. He also presented, "Port Choice for U.S. Import Commodities." The study investigated the port choice behavior for U.S. import commodities from the foreign trade partners.
Luke Holt, a transportation research planning analyst with the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, chaired as session on vehicle routing applications. He also presented "A Static Regional Routing Model for Large Geographic Healthcare Networks." In a study of regional healthcare distribution networks, researchers developed a vehicle routing model that minimizes costs.
Transportation and logistics student Poyraz Kayabas presented "Highway Patrol Planning and Needs Assessment Using GIS.: The study showed that GIS tools can be used for diverse tasks in patrol planning, needs assessments, and patrol routing.
Transportation and logistics student Yasaman Kazemi presented "Modeling the Effects of Disruption on Gasoline Supply Chain." The research developed a model for the gasoline supply chain to hedge against facility disruptions and to minimize the expected total cost of location and transportation of gasoline in the downstream oil supply chain.
Transportation and logistics student Nimish Dharmadhikari presented "Economic Model Evaluation of Sugar-beet Production in Red River Valley." In the research, a comprehensive economic model of Sugar-beet growing, transportation, and processing have been developed for the Red River valley to analyze the critical cost attributes and parameters.
Transportation and logistics student Sumadhur Shakya presented "Structural Changes in North American Fertilizer Logistics." Shakya examined how changing cropping patterns and new domestic sources of natural gas may influence flows of fertilizer in the United States with potential to allow future exports.
Doctoral student Christopher Dehann presented a poster entitled "Modeling Water Needs in Western North Dakota." He described how the model was critical in assessing the needs of a region that is seeing dramatic increases in water demand from the oil industry and population growth.
Doctoral student Chijioke Ifepe presented a poster entitled "Decision Support System to Schedule Coffee Shop Servers." Ifepe described how a decision support system can be designed to make the scheduling of coffee shop workers a less complex and timely task for managers.