O.R. and Study Abroad

Each summer, the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department at Georgia Tech organizes a study abroad program in Singapore and Beijing. The travel and the differences in operations in different countries and cultures offer a unique environment to motivate the learning of O.R. principles in areas such as scheduling, layout, routing and inventory control.

This focused program offers four courses that are related to travel and locales: Asia in Modern History, Quality Assurance, Logistics, Manufacturing, and Warehousing. Since all students take the same classes and live in the same dorm building, the program organizes some course-related activities. The students also spontaneously organize group travel and entertainment. Since the professors stay close to the students, they are able to participate in some of their activities. The camaraderie and shared common experiences encourage class-related discussions using concrete examples from their daily experiences that they all relate to well. Here are some of the examples of good use of O.R. that the study-abroad students have learned from:

1. Design efficiency. Atlanta, Singapore, and Beijing are very different cities that provide a stark contrast in various aspects of operational efficiencies. As the student, Catherine Fong commented one day, "Singapore is like an IE city." She was impressed with the efficiencies in the design and the operations of the airport, the public transportation and various services such as registration and event entrance. The queue design, layout, and staffing, the allocation of personnel and sign display are often well-engineered. Beijing, as an emerging world city, showed great variations. Atlanta has good efficiency with low variation but often is not at the top compared to others.

2. Constrained scheduling. The program timetable itself was used as an example in scheduling. The program starts mid-May and ends in early August. It is constrained by the calendars of three universities. The calendars affect the availability of dorm, classroom, students, and faculty. Students commented that the best way to learn the local culture is through the local students. Therefore, one of the objectives in determining the schedule is to get the most number of students in all universities. Although it is not a typical textbook scheduling problem, it is a practical one, just like many real-world problems. It helps the students to think and to expand.

3. Objective function selection for shortest-path problems. Initially, when the students arrange for their weekend excursions, they often use the term "best route" loosely. Then, they realize that the "best route" depends on the objective. It can cost, time, convenience, stops or layover value (Singapore's airport has free Internet access). Throughout the program, they change from a subconscious, ad hoc way of thinking to a more structured way of thinking about this shortest path problem.

4. Variance reduction in stochastic processes. At the National University of Singapore, the students notice that the campus bus runs fast and is punctual. In addition to the higher speed of driving, the stoppage time is normally shorter. After the last person enters the bus, the driver will close the door and start moving. In the beginning, many students are actually very uncomfortable with the bus doing that. In the United States, for safety reasons, the bus does not move unless everyone is sitting down. However, after a while, the students started to like the system in Singapore because of the speedy service. The process overlapping, or parallelism shortens up traveling time.

This provides concrete examples of parallel processing and discussing the pros and cons associated with it. The bus is punctual partially due to fixed start-up times. On the route, the driver is conscious of staying on time. During service, the driver enforces that passengers board in the front door and exit from the rear door. The streamlined flow reduces the variation in stoppage time. The reduction of variations smoothes out the ridership, as queueing theory explains.

Similar comparisons are observed by the students in the subway operations. In Singapore and newlines in Beijing, the length of each subway train is the same as the length of the station. The train lines up with the access marks on the platform. In Singapore, the passengers spread out evenly along with the access marks. When the train stops, the passengers exit the train first from the middle and then the passengers board the cart. The process is streamlined and fast. The students see the design, operation, and culture at work. In the new lines in Beijing, the design layout and operation are the same. However, passengers are less disciplined. As a result, there are notable differences in stoppage times. In Atlanta and older lines in Beijing, the stop points are random; as the train slows down, the passengers scramble to position themselves, and the boarding and exiting go on at the same time. It is a much longer process.

5. Supply chain channels. Many students really like Tiger beer in Singapore and believe that there is an opportunity to introduce it in the States. We use it as a case to study the supply chain. The many options for designing this supply chain are low volume import via air, pallet loads oversea using common carriers, container loads oversea using common carriers or using 3PL services, or building brewery and distribution centers and channels here in the States.

6. Network design. The example of hub-and-spoke network design in transportation is often limited to airlines in classrooms in the States. However, the public transportation systems in many large cities around the world also follow the hub-and-spoke network design. In the study abroad program, the students can "experience" the pros and cons of such designs first hand.

In summary, the travels and the differences in service and infrastructure in different countries can provide an excellent backdrop for introducing, motivating and linking to O.R.