EURO Excellence in Practice Award 2024 - Finalists

Sponsored by

The three finalists of the 2024 EURO Excellence in Practice Award are:

Trung Hieu TranSchool of Water, Energy and Environment, Cranfield University,Thi Thu Ba Nguyen, University of Bedfordshire, Thi Hoa Sen Le, Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry (HUAF), Duc Chinh Phung, Vietnam Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology and Climate Change, Hoai Chung Pham, Transport and Development Strategy Institute, Phuong Le Nguyen, Hanoi University of Agriculture (HUA), Thi Anh Phuong Huynh, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, Hue University of Sciences, Business School, University of Exeter

Optimal Planning Tool for Agricultural Waste Management in Vietnam (OPT-AWAMA)

Abstract

Vietnam's agricultural sectors have rapidly developed to become major contributions to the growth of economy (e.g., in 2019, Vietnam’s rice export revenue achieved US$1.4 billion). Accompanying the development, however, agricultural waste management in Vietnam (i.e., approximately 76 million tons including 45.22 million tons of rice straw, 8.73 million tons of rice husk, 4.04 million tons of sugarcane bagasse, 6.33 million tons of maize by-products, 1 million tons of coffee shell and 10 million tons of vegetable by-products) has become a challenging issue for rural planners due to the lack of an efficient planning tool and impacts of climate change. As a result, it has increasingly caused air and water pollution in many rural areas of the country. In this project, we thus collaborated with Vietnam institutions (including Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry, Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology and Climate Change, and Transport and Development Strategy Institute) to develop a proof-of-concept planning model for rural planners to optimally locate facilities that produce bio-organic fertilizer from waste, and to determine the optimal set of routes for a fleet of vehicles to collect and transport the waste from farms to facilities. In the novel location-assignment-routing problem, we investigated unreliability in facility location and vehicle routing planning due to the risk of disruptions to location sites and roads (i.e., unexpected failure of location sites and roads due to flood impact). The model aims to minimise total expected cost of locating facilities and routing vehicles under the risk of disruptions (due to flood impact) such that the amount of waste at farms is totally collected. A robust mixed-integer nonlinear programming model for this problem was formulated. The model was further generalised to a multi-period planning problem given limited periodic budgets of locating facilities and deploying vehicles. The model was linearized so that it can be solved using a general-purpose solver. In addition, a meta-heuristic algorithm was developed to solve the large-scale instances within a reasonable computation time. Finally, the model was applied for agricultural waste management in Quang Tri province, Vietnam.

Louis Bouvier, CERMICS, Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, Thaddeus Leonard, Renault Group, Guillaume Dalle, IdePHICS, INDY & SPOC labs, EPFL, Axel Parmentier, CERMICS, Ecole des Ponts ParisTech

Renault Group Packaging Return Logistics in Europe

Abstract

This project emerged from a collaboration between the CERMICS laboratory and Renault Group. Their challenge: optimizing reverse empty-packaging logistics for car parts transportation from suppliers to plants. Spanning an entire continent, this multi-attribute inventory routing problem (IRP) involves 30 commodities, 16 depots, and 600 customers—far surpassing existing literature instances. Traditional IRP algorithms do not scale, so we propose a large neighborhood search (LNS). Our approach involves three key steps: (1) generalizing split delivery vehicle routing and IRP neighborhoods, (2) adapting a matheuristic for medium-scale IRP into a large neighborhood, and (3) introducing novel perturbations like customer and commodity reinsertion. Additionally, we establish a new lower bound based on flow relaxation. To foster large-scale IRP research, we release an industrial instance library and open-source our code. Rigorous numerical experiments validate the effectiveness of each LNS component. The industrialization of our LNS, coupled with robust change management, has yielded substantial benefits. At Renault, we have achieved a 4−5% reduction in packaging logistics costs per vehicle produced, a 50% decrease in packaging shortages at suppliers, and a 10% reduction in CO2 equivalent transport emissions for 2023. These gains translate to millions of euros saved and kilotons of emissions reduced annually.

El Mehdi Er Raqabi, Polytechnique Montreal, Issmail El Hallaoui, GERAD, Polytechnique, Nizar El Hachemi, Africa Business School, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, François Soumis, GERAD, Ahmed Beljadid, Polytechnique Montréal, Mohammed Ali Bennouna, OCP Group, Nabil Si Hammou, OCP Group, Michel Fender, Africa Business School, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Anouar Jamali, OCP Africa, Hicham Guellaf, OCP Group, Ilyas Rakhis, OCP Group

OCP Optimizes Its Supply Chain For Africa and The World

Abstract

Operational research specialists at the OCP Group, the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, and the Polytechnique Montreal operationalized a system optimizing OCP’s supply chain downstream activities. The system simultaneously schedules production, inventory, and vessels while ensuring the highest demand fulfillment. Therefore, it has become central to the OCP planning process. Planners use the optimizer’s solutions and insights to improve plans in different OCP sites. Initially, the system was a bottleneck, curbing the use of other supply chain management tools. OCP management now credits the system operationalization with providing operational benefits, contributing to over a $240 million increase in annual turnover.