INFORMS 2021 Program Book

INFORMS Anaheim 2021

MC39

2 - Two-stage Robust Edge Service Placement and Sizing under Uncertainties Duong T. Nguyen, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States, Ni Trieu, Hieu T. Nguyen, Jiaming Cheng, Vijay K. Bhargava We study the optimal service placement and workload allocation problem under uncertainties from the perspective of a service provider who can procure resources from numerous distributed edge nodes. To tackle this problem, we propose novel two-stage and multi-period robust optimization models which aim to balance between minimizing the operating cost for the provider and improving the experience for its users, considering various uncertainties such as resource demand and edge node failures. We employ and tailor the column-and-constraint generation method to develop iterative algorithms to solve the proposed robust models, which show significant advantages compared to benchmark solutions. MC38 CC Room 210D In Person: Financial Frictions and Operations Management General Session Chair: Christopher J Chen, Indiana University Kelley School of Business, Bloomington, IN, 47405-1703, United States Chair: Danko Turcic, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, 92521-9800, United States 1 - Inventory Productivity in Manufacturing Networks Nikolay Osadchiy, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322-1059, United States, Deepak Agrawal We identify drivers of inventory productivity in manufacturing networks, including traditional and novel ones based on the supply chain position, and discuss implications for performance benchmarking and valuation. 2 - Blockchain Technology in Agriculture: Tipping the Farmers and its Implications Saed Alizamir, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 6520, United States, Basak Kalkanci, Foad Iravani We examine an emerging financial innovation in agricultural supply chains that is enabled by the Blockchain technology. This innovation empowers socially- conscious customers to identify the individual farmers of their sustainably-sourced products and send them direct payments, or tips, through mobile apps. We investigate the implications of this new capability on farmers’ and consumers’ welfare and agricultural firm profits. We show that farmers’ expected and actual income and consumer welfare may reduce in the presence of tipping if certain conditions on model parameters hold. In contrast, if tipping is implemented under the right conditions, it can create a triple win for agricultural firms, farmers, and consumers. 3 - Managing Operations of a Hog Farm Facing Volatile Markets: Inventory and Selling Strategies of the Maschhoffs Ye Liu, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, 100081, United States, Panos Kouvelis, Yunzhe Qiu, Danko Turcic We study the problem of a wean-to-finish hog farmer who gets to see how market-ready hogs she has available at the beginning each week for sale and the current market prices. Then, she must decide how many hogs to sell through to a meatpacker and on the open market. We view the farmer’s problem as a dynamic, multi-item inventory model with random yields and prices. We show that there are two thresholds: one for the under-weight and the other for the regular-weight hogs. Whenever the number of animals in a particular weight pool is below that threshold, the farm should do nothing. When the number of market-ready animals exceeds that threshold, the farm should sell the excess on the open market or to the meatpacker, depending on the prevailing market prices. Calibrated numerical experiments show that the optimal policy has around 25% improvement over the existing practice.

MC39 CC Room 211A In Person: DEI Ambassador Program Session Flash Session Chair: Anahita Khojandi, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, United States Co-Chair: Daniel Reich, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, 93943, United States 1 - Who Are the Gatekeepers? An Examination of Diversity in INFORMS Journal Editorial Boards Margaret L. Brandeau, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305- 4121, United States, Laker Newhouse Publishing in respected scholarly journals is critical to academic success. However, if journal editorial boards fail to reflect the diversity of thought in a field, worthy work may be overlooked. This study assesses the level of diversity in the editorial boards of the 16 INFORMS journals. We examine gender, whether an individual is an underrepresented minority, and institutional affiliation, and perform a network analysis to identify coauthor relationships between editorial board members. 2 - A Safe Platform for INFORMS Minority Groups Tinglong Dai, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 21212- 1708, United States, Christopher Tang The objective of this Ambassador Program is to establish a support group to discuss challenges facing minority groups within the INFORMS community. The support group will be organized in the form of three panels led by a broadly inclusive set of panelists from both academia and industry and supported by the INFORMS leadership. To create a safe environment, participants will have the option to stay anonymous for all the panels. 3 - MIF undergraduate Students Day at the INFORMS Annual Meeting Trilce Encarnacion, University of Missouri- St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO, 63121, United States, Ruben Proaño Hispanics and African Americans are consistently underrepresented in STEM disciplines, the MIF Undergraduate Students Day is a short workshop prior to the 2021 INFORMS Annual Meeting for a selected group of undergraduate minority students in sophomore and junior years, interested in OR/MS. These students will receive funding from MIF to attend the Annual Meeting, and will be introduced to the field of OR/MS and the potential career pathways. Students will also be offered guidance on how to navigate the Annual Meeting, attend research presentations, and explore career opportunities in the field. By offering young URM undergraduate students the opportunity to explore cutting edge research presented at the meeting, we seek to encourage URM students to join the OR/MS community, and take advantage of mentoring opportunities through MIF and INFORMS. 4 - Sustaining An Empowered Community for Women of Color in ORMS Julie Simmons Ivy, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695-7906, United States, Karen Hicklin, Maria Mayorga With DEI funding for the 2020 Ambassadors Program project “Building An Empowered Community for WoC in ORMS,” the team successfully established the first cohort of 21 Empowered Women of Color (EWoCs). The objective of this project is to sustain the community of WoC (both in academia and industry) that was initiated through the DEI Ambassadors Program inaugural award in 2020. The goal of sustaining this community for WoC within INFORMS is to increase the number of WoC in academia and empower them to navigate the tenure track. Additionally, this community supports the growth and development of women of color in industry positions who oftentimes experience issues with imposter syndrome resulting from microaggressions and unconscious bias. This community plays a unique role in INFORMS as we are the only community focused on intersectionality and the unique needs of WoC in OR/MS, as such we have created a safe space within INFORMS for professional and community development. 5 - We’re Here: LGBTQ+ Stories of Identity, Community, and Mentorship from INFORMS Members Tyler Perini, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30318, United States This virtual camp was developed by the Tapia Center and Google’s Operations Research Team, and funded by INFORMS DEI. Participants will learn computational thinking skills and design their own algorithm for an important societal challenge: college admissions. The 7th-12th graders will analyze how equitable and fair their algorithm is in deciding which students are allowed to enroll in which colleges. They will interact with college students and STEM Operations Research professionals.

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