09:10 -09:30 am Arrival for all attendees; VIPs will be met by the University of Melbourne Vice Chancellor

09:30 – 10:45 am Formal launch

10:45 – 11:15 am Morning Tea and student poster session

The launch will showcase the first year of operations for the ARC Industrial Training Centre in Optimisation Technologies, Integrated Methodologies, and Applications (OPTIMA). We introduce our industry partners and the PhD students working on their complex optimisation problems. We present our centre members and our bold strategic plan for the future of the Centre.

About OPTIMA (http://optima.org.au)

OPTIMA’s mission is to deliver industrial transformation via increased uptake of trusted and sophisticated optimisation technologies, addressing industry’s urgent need for decision-making tools for global competitiveness: reducing lead times and financial and environmental costs while improving efficiency, quality, and agility.

OPTIMA is led by Professor Kate Smith-Miles, Centre Director at the University of Melbourne and Professor Peter Stuckey, Deputy Director at Monash University. We work across two nodes, with 12 chief investigators based at the University of Melbourne and six at Monash University. We have over 100 members. The expertise within OPTIMA spans the disciplines of operations research, computer science, statistics and probability, economics, and engineering. Integration of the optimisation approaches developed by each of these contributing disciplines is a core focus of the Centre. These interdisciplinary integration efforts will produce powerful new optimisation methods and demonstrate their value in various application domains in industrial contexts.

The ARC has funded OPTIMA $4.86m for a five-year project. OPTIMA is also funded by our ten industry partners, with a range of optimisation needs spanning the advanced manufacturing, energy resources and critical infrastructure sectors.

The ARC CEO, the Minister of Education, representatives from the faculties at both nodes, industry representatives and OPTIMA members will attend the event.

Catering – catering will be provided for vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free. Please email charlotte.hurry@unimelb.edu.au if you have another dietary requirement that you would like to include.