The INFORMS Annual Meeting for 2019 has come and gone with multiple keynotes shared, workshop activities, and hundreds of excellent companies sharing their experiences and solutions from brightly colored booths. Once again, Simio was at the thick of things evangelizing the benefits of simulation and Digital Twin technology to the world. As with all annual meetings, the focus was on the strides been made in operational research and analytics. And the meeting provided the chance to explore emerging technologies and its applications across all ‘works of life’.
The term ‘all works of life’ wasn’t used lightly as sessions covering social media analytics and e-learning to applying analytics to human trafficking were explored. As for Simio, our role was somewhere in the middle and as stated earlier, our participation was centered around the digital twin. But before going into details of how the event panned out and Simio’s roles, here is an outline of what the INFORMS Annual Meeting is about for interested individuals.
INFORMS Annual Meeting
INFORMS which stands for the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences is an umbrella organization for professionals plying their trade in operations research and analytics. INFORMS currently boasts of approximately 12,500 members across the globe which highlights its global or international reach.
The organization also sets standards and guidelines to ensure research and analytics within its field are ethically done. To bring its thousands of members together under one roof, the INFORMS Annual Meeting event was created and it holds once a year. The event features keynote sessions, workshops, publication presentations, and an exhibition area for member and enterprises to showcase their wares.
The INFORMS Annual Meeting also coincides with its community service drive to assist non-profit organizations with meeting their obligations. This is done through the INFORMS Pro Bono Analytics section of the organization. If you are wondering why the information about Pro Bono Analytics is included here, then I ask for patience as it will all make sense in the end.
Now to the annual meeting of 2019!
The 2019 INFORMS Annual Meeting was a 3-day event which ran from the 20th of October to the 23rd. This year’s event was definitely a success as more than 5,000 people breezed through the different sessions, exhibition areas, workshops, and lunch areas throughout the 3-day event. The convention center buzzed with activities through these days and we are proud to say Simio capitalized on these activities in different ways. Our participation included a dedicated Simio booth highlighting the use of Simio digital twin technology, a session handled by Jason, and workshop presentations from Renee.
Keynote Sessions and Workshops of Note at the INFORMS Annual Meeting
Tens of session covering operations research and analytics were covered throughout the event which makes mentioning and discussing every one of them impossible. So, the focus will be on simulation, digital transformation, cloud computing, and digital twin sessions.
One of the exciting sessions within the above category was the session about the computational infrastructure for operations research, COIN-OR, initiative. The IBM project focuses on providing open-source technologies solely for computational operations research. The end goal is to provide an open-source library of tools which will ensure researches do not have to start from scratch when handling complex research. This creates a foundation that will be built on and maintained by researchers over the years.
The session ‘Robust Optimization and Learning Under Uncertainty’ was also interesting as it discussed the challenges stakeholders face with decision-making and policy creation. Han Yu, a PhD student at the University of California spoke about how important data collection, and an understanding of history should drive real-world decision-making. The session also discussed how modeling and robust optimization techniques can enhance the decision-making process.
Other notable sessions highlighted or raised questions about the role digital twin and simulation could play in enhancing agriculture and the healthcare industry. According to Greg from Syngenta, AI, computer vision, and bioINFORMSatics modelling currently assist Syngenta with making data-driven seed selections and breeding. This raises the question of the role of the digital twin in agriculture which may be explored in other blog posts.
In the ‘Healthcare Modeling and Optimization’ session, Dr. Zlatana Nenova spoke about the role modeling and data analytics play in improving healthcare. Her speech also touched on the use of digital technology to analyze medical care policies for both off and on-site healthcare delivery. In terms of on-site healthcare, there are certainly diverse ways the healthcare industry can benefit from digital twin technology. Although this was not covered in this year’s event, it highlights the possibilities of applying digital twin to the healthcare industry.
Simio’s Events at the INFORMS Annual Meeting
Now, to Simio and our role at the INFORMS conference. In last year’s event, Ms. Renee Thiesing, the VP of Strategic Alliances, spoke excellently on the role Simio plays in driven discrete event simulation and the digital transformation of brownfield systems as the move to Industry 4.0 continues. She also highlighted the importance of real-time event scheduling and how Simio can help enterprises solve real-time scheduling challenges using Simio.
In this year’s event, Ms. Renee built on her earlier foundation by focusing on the digital twin capabilities of Simio and its application in diverse industries. Her session titled ‘New Innovations: Cloud Computing, Real-Time Scheduling, Industry 4.0 and more’ discussed how Simio leverages cloud computing to deliver high-performing scheduling and simulations.
Through the session, she discussed how Simio leverages the computing power of Microsoft Azure to support complex applications. Simio’s compatibility with Schneider Electric’s Wonderware was also discussed in detail. This includes the leveraging of Wonderware to achieve detailed production scheduling in real-time, as well as, manage real-time risk analysis. The new Simio features such as Simio’s cloud portal and OptQuest were also covered during her workshop. She highlighted OptQuest abilities to optimize scheduling and simulation with the aim of delivering optimal solutions to complex business problems.
Jason Ceresoli also spoke on the benefits of using Simio’s 3D modelling capabilities to solve real—world problems. His presentation covered Simio’s features for system design and operation. Practical examples of how Simio’s rapid 3D modeling, planning and scheduling, and optimization capabilities can be used by enterprises were also discussed by Jason. Finally, his session highlighted the difference between Simio and other simulation tools with a focus on how professional researchers and analysts can use these features.
Our participation at the INFORMS Annual Meeting will not be complete without recounting our experiences at booth 28 in the exhibition area. The targeted message used in the Simio booth drew its own audience of professionals, entrepreneurs and business representatives interested in the digital twin. This gave us the opportunity to showcase Simio’s features and real-world applications to interested individuals. We can categorically say our booth played a role in the sales leads and opportunities we got from the event.
Simio and the Pro Bono Analytics Event
I remember introducing you to the INFORMS Pro Bono Analytics and now here we are! This year, Pro Bono Analytics partnered with a Seattle-based non-profit organization, FareStart, to assist individuals interested in building careers in food service and culinary arts. At this year’s INFORMS Annual Meeting, Simio alongside other participants made donations to the FareStart initiative.
The event was a success and according to Elise Tinseth, Community Engagement Manager with FareStart, shared, “The INFORMS Pro Bono micro-volunteer opportunity of creating hygiene kits is impactful to eliminating barriers our students who are experience poverty and homelessness have to getting jobs in the food service industry.’ She also thanked everyone who made out time and donated resources to help FareStart meet its goals.
INFORMS Annual Meeting Awards and the Future
And lastly, the INFORMS Annual Meeting Awards. Although Simio did not bag any of the awards, the pomp and pageantry, as well as, the strides made by researchers are worthy of a mention in this post. Hopefully, the prize for teaching operations research and management science may be ours. That being said, the 2019 event was a success and Simio will continue to be a part of the INFORMS Annual meeting for the foreseeable future.