INFORMS Open Forum

Dear All,

[Apologies for the cross-posting]

The INFORMS Transportation Science and Logistics Society (TSL) and Meituan, a platform offering location-based consumer products and services including entertainment, dining, delivery, travel, and more, are partnering to provide researchers and practitioners worldwide with access to Meituan's operational-level food delivery data in the first INFORMS TSL Data-Driven Research Challenge. This initiative aims to foster data-driven research on real-world challenges. Participants are expected to develop data-driven optimization models using the real data provided by Meituan, to address some of the suggested questions or to explore questions of their interest.

If you are interested, please refer to the announcement link or the attached files for more details.

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Lei Zhao
Professor
Tsinghua University
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Thank you, a generous offer.  However "data driven" in isolation is often a pending disaster.  There are at least two other critical components to an "in the trenches" experience.  (1) The structure of the demand supply network (DSN) to use Karl Kempf's term and how the decisions are structured across tiers.  (2) The dynamic interaction with the user community from planners and dispatchers to executives and an understanding of the actual operations (Woolsey rule 101).    Again a great opportunity.

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Ken Fordyce
director analytics without borders
Arkieva
Wilmington DE
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I agree with Ken Fordyce.  It's a great opportunity to examine real-world data. But an algorithm out of context of its use in an application by real people is hard to evaluate. Ken's practitioner viewpoint is hard to replicate in a competition like this.  A well-done example is the INFORMS Edelman Prize competition, which encourages teams to present a solution fitted to its scenario.

I hope lots of TSL participants can be found, and interesting results produced!

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Bruce Hartman
Professor
University of St. Francis
Tucson, AZ United States
bruce@ahartman.net
website:http://drbrucehartman.net/brucewebsite/
blog:http://supplychainandlogistics.org
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-22-2024 10:09
From: Ken Fordyce
Subject: The First INFORMS TSL Data-Driven Research Challenge

Thank you, a generous offer.  However "data driven" in isolation is often a pending disaster.  There are at least two other critical components to an "in the trenches" experience.  (1) The structure of the demand supply network (DSN) to use Karl Kempf's term and how the decisions are structured across tiers.  (2) The dynamic interaction with the user community from planners and dispatchers to executives and an understanding of the actual operations (Woolsey rule 101).    Again a great opportunity.

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Ken Fordyce
director analytics without borders
Arkieva
Wilmington DE
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