Séminaire conjoint CRT-Chaire de recherche du Canada en distributique-Chaire de recherche du Canada en logistique et en transport-Chaire de recherche industrielle du CRSNG en management logistique

TITRE : Understanding the effects of uncertainty in optimization

CONFÉRENCIER : Stein W. Wallace, Molde University College, Norway

DATE et ENDROIT : 8 décembre, 10h30, salle 5441, Pavillon André-Aisenstadt, Campus de l'Université de Montréal

RESPONSABLE : Gilbert Laporte (514-343-6143)

RÉSUMÉ : Most decisions are made under some uncertainty about the future. Most models do not take that explicitly into account. Is that a minor issue or a major problem? The purpose of this lecture is to illustrate how deterministic models, even combined with sensitivity analysis, what-if-sessions or other similar tools, can lead to rather bad decisions. Using one example from network design and one from scheduling, I show how solutions from deterministic models differ from those of stochastic models in systematic and recognizable ways. I also try to show ways forward in terms of capturing these differences without solving (unsolvable) stochastic optimization problems. So the overall goal of the underlying research is to find good (if not optimal) solutions to stochastic optimization problems without solving such problems.