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Many operations in daily life, from manufacturing to running a hospital, need to optimise the return on use of resources where volume and value are conditions. Scheduling theory tackles some of the hardest practical optimisation problems, not known to be solvable in reasonable computation time. Strusevich and Kellerer have been able to reformulate practical scheduling challenges as `knapsack problems' - dealing with volume and value constraints - and then design approximation algorithms which can be applied back to the original challenge. The work has attracted EPSRC funding, stimulated a new field of research which is developing fast, been widely published, led to presentations at international conferences including the 2009 Computers and Industrial Engineering conference attended by industry practitioners and is impacting on Combinatorial Optimisation research.
Poor staff rosters are at the heart of socially-unacceptable working patterns, inadequate rest times and increased levels of stress. They lead to poor productivity, low levels of engagement and additional costs associated with high levels of staff turnover and absenteeism. Research undertaken at City University London has harnessed the power of `Optimisation' techniques to assist managers to draw up good quality staff rosters in hospitals, call centres and other large workforce organisations. The state-of-the-art electronic rostering programme improves use of resources, reduces reliance on costly agency staff, reduces the risk of fines for breaching legal requirements such as the European Working Time Directive and leads to significant savings in the health and social care sectors.
Transport crew scheduling research at Leeds University since 1994 produced optimising algorithms and industry-ready software that led to the spinning out of Tracsis in 2004. The software, including upgrades, is used by over 40 bus and train companies who previously relied on manual processes. A minimum estimate of a £230 million saving in crew costs has been achieved in the UK alone over 2008-31.7.2013. Since 2008, the software has been routinely used by bidders in all UK rail franchise tenders, contributing to cost effective, efficient and reliable rail transport. Success led to the Tracsis floatation in November 2007 (market capitalisation: £46.7 million on 22/5/2013).
Research on designing mathematical methods for optimisation carried out at the University of Southampton has been fundamental to the development of software solutions for transportation problems and has directly led to the growth and commercial success of the niche software company, Logical Transport. Additional beneficiaries are local councils — who have obtained school bus schedules that typically reduced the number of required vehicles by 10-20% and miles driven by 12-15% and have an information management tool for better decision making — and passengers who have experienced improved service quality.
Through close collaboration with scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA), research at the University of Southampton has developed new algorithms and an associated software tool that have contributed to more efficient spacecraft design. Now a standard component of the ESA's design technology, the tools have doubled the speed in which crucial design processes can be completed, resulting in increased efficiency over the REF period of 20 person-years — equivalent to €1 million in monetary terms — and maintaining the ESA's manufacturing competitiveness. The success of this work led to a €480,000 EU grant to adapt the tools for the avionics industry as part of efforts to meet ambitious environmental targets under the EU Clean Sky Initiative.
This case study reports the development of a new approach to solving full field reservoir problems with inhomogeneous and anisotropic permeability and variable reservoir This comprehensive body of work arose from discussions between scientists at the Schlumberger Technology Centre, Abingdon, and the internationally recognised Nonlinear Waves group in the School of Mathematics, and has been supported under two contracts with Schlumberger Oilfield UK PLC through their Technology Centre in Abingdon UK. The work has provided Schlumberger with a fast, robust and efficient tool for the rapid assessment of optimisation problems relating to oil well location sites in new oil reservoirs, and has been implemented in their recently developed GREAT facility for reservoir estimation and analysis. Schlumberger PLC is an international company which plays a premier role in supplying the petrochemical industry with services such as seismic acquisition and processing, well testing and directional drilling, flow assurance and extraction strategy. The work described in this case study took place from 2007 to 2011, and involved D J Needham (University of Birmingham) and S Langdon (University of Reading).
Research by Gondzio (Maxwell Institute) on algorithms for large-scale optimization has led to major advances in the design of interior point methods (IPMs). The advances include new ways of exploiting centrality (1996-2008) as well as special preconditioning (2004) and warmstarting (2003, 2008) techniques. These techniques make it possible to solve more difficult optimization problems more quickly. Some of these have been implemented by all major commercial providers of optimization software including IBM, Gurobi, Mosek and FICO. The techniques have therefore had an economic impact on these companies and on thousands of their customers worldwide who now benefit from faster, more reliable methods to solve their challenging optimization tasks.
Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), developed by Peter Checkland and colleagues at Lancaster University, has been adopted worldwide for tackling complex problems in both private and public sectors. It is used widely in consulting practice, leading to major business and economic impacts. In examples 1 and 2 we report major impacts, including a reshaped multi-national business and extra profits of RMB 50M in a Chinese company. In addition, SSM has helped effect major cultural change within multinational business as described in example 3 and has been adopted as part of mainstream business analysis (examples 4, 5 and 6). This has been achieved through a deliberate policy of action research and post-experience education, supported by academic and practitioner-oriented books.
Inverse kinematics mathematics developed at Surrey for satellite control is being commercialised for motion capture, film animation and for real-time animation in computer games through IKinema, a University of Surrey spin-out company. Ikinema is the most advanced full-body IK solver and has been used in films such as X-men First Class and Wrath of the Titans 2; it is embedded in Luxology's modo-601, and is used by major film studios including 20th Century Fox, Disney, Lucas Film, ILM, and visual effects specialists and game developers such as Framestore, Square Enix, and AudioMotion. IKinema currently employs 6 staff and is profitable, with 80% of sales revenues generated by export.
This study demonstrates how Bayes linear methodologies developed at Durham University have impacted on industrial practice. Two examples are given. The approach has been applied by London Underground Ltd. to the management of bridges, stations and other civil engineering assets, enabling a whole-life strategic approach to maintenance and renewal to reduce costs and increase safety. The approach has won a major award for innovation in engineering and technology. The methodology has also been applied by Unilever and Fera to improve methods of assessing product safety and in particular the risk of chemical ingredients in products causing allergic skin reactions.