Title: Capacitated Multi Pickup and Delivery Problem with Time Windows (CMPDPTW)
Date and time: 24 March 2024 (Monday), 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.
Venue: IEOR Seminar Room
Abstract: Vehicle Routing Problems (VRP) has been an intense research area in logistics, spanning last six decades. Pick-up and Delivery (PDP) problems are an extension to the VRP, and with the emergence of e-commerce, the PDP has been further extended to handle multiple vehicle and multiple pick-ups against each delivery; with each pick-up/delivery to be done within prescribed Time Windows (TW). Such problems are termed as Multi Pick Up and Delivery problem with Time Windows (MPDPTW), which find practical usage in the ecommerce industry in general and the food industry in particular.
The goal in our work is to mathematically model the capacitated MPDPTW and develop dedicated valid inequalities along with their separation procedures, for enhanced solution performance using cutting plane approach, against benchmark problem instances.
Bio: Dr. Amit Kohar is a Mechanical Engineer, with Masters in Technology from IIT Kharagpur (2002-2004) and an MBA from IIM Lucknow (Ilagship PGP; 2008-2010). He holds a PhD in Operations Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. His research focuses on developing cutting plane solution approaches to solve tough combinatorial optimization problems within reasonable time. He has published four peer-reviewed articles in leading journals (Transportation Research Part-B, Annals of OR, Computers and Industrial Engg. and Journal of Revenue and Pricing Mgt.). He started his professional life with General Electric (GE), working in the aircraft engine design team at JF Welch Technology centre, Bengaluru. Thereafter, he worked with Alstom (AIPL) in their steam engine business. At GE and Alstom, his assignments included Computer Aided Design (CAD)/ Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) to design the Aircraft Engine/Steam Engine parts for their mechanical integrity. In 2010, he joined Essar Group as a part of their Business Leadership Program (BLP), where he was recognized as the best BLP for the batch. Since 2012, he has been working in the Food Corporation of India (FCI); and is currently handling pan-India transportation of food grains as a Deputy General Manager (Movt.). He holds a Six Sigma green belt (GE) and has a strong passion for process improvement. At GE, he was instrumental, as a two-member team, to develop a tool, using Lean Six Sigma approach, to reduce the turnaround time for a design cycle from days into hours. At FCI, he has been a part of the IT team leading the implementation of Depot Online System (DOS), to automate all operations of FCI and integrate with third party applications to bring in IT-enabled transformation in the food grain supply chain. His team at FCI has received the coveted Digital India Awards in 2020, from the Hon'ble President of India. He has also single-handedly developed a web-based Movement Planning tool, to enable pan-India rail movement planning for FCI spread across
~1000 railheads, which helped FCI accomplish the unprecedented scale of distribution of food grains under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana (PMGKAY), during the COVID-19 pandemic.