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OPTIT - FROM ANALYTICS AND OPTIMISATION TO OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE
© Photo by Sam LaRussa on Unsplash
OPTIT - FROM ANALYTICS AND OPTIMISATION TO OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE
MICHELA MATTEI
OPTIT HAS BEEN DEVELOPING IT SOLUTIONS to support business innovation based on Data Science, Analytics and Optimisation for over 15 years, following its mission to unlock the potential of Operational Research (O.R.) and Advanced Analytics in practical contexts to achieve operational excellence. We leverage on proprietary analytics platforms to support our customers and partners in their Digital Innovation roadmap.
The company operates through two offices in Bologna and Cesena, in Emilia-Romagna, the beating heart of the Italian industrial avant-garde. With consolidated agrifood, packaging, automotive and biotech industries, and the recent opening of the Big Data Technopole where the ECMWF
(European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) and the Leonardo supercomputer are going to be located, this area is now considered the centre of the so-called Italian Data Valley.
This thriving ecosystem is the result of the deep influence of the University of Bologna, the oldest in the world. Indeed Optit itself was founded in 2007 as a spin-off of the O.R. group within the DEIS department, under the initiative of Prof. Daniele Vigo. Daniele was joined in 2010 by Matteo Pozzi and Claudio Caremi, both experienced management consultants, and Fabio Lombardi, a talented software engineer. Since then, Optit has seen constant and rapid growth in its size and customer base, and now employs about fifty people, almost all with MS degrees or PhD in engineering and science disciplines, consolidating a leading role at national and international level.
The main characteristic of Optit, which is also one of the reasons for its growth and success, is the flexible business model, which allows spanning from model-assisted consultancy to the development of complex enterprise applications to better suit the specific needs of the customer. Such flexibility is achieved through the focus on three pillars: Science, ICT and Business. Data Scientists and O.R. Specialists interact with a full-stack Software Factory, while interaction with the end user is facilitated and supported by a team of consultants that keep the focus on business impact. This interdisciplinary approach (which is coherent with the origins and development of O.R.) enables the seamless translation of objectives and constraints into mathematical and algorithmic terms, and eventually ensures that the decision support system’s implementation effectively delivers the intended results to the customers.
Co-founder of the EURO Forum on Practice of Operations Research, Optit keeps a close connection with Universities and Research Centres, participating in various research projects and financing PhD programmes, as well as attracting the enthusiasm and energy of young researchers across the EU to advance at the tipping point of digital innovation through Advanced Analytics.
PROCESS OPTIMISATION AS A KEY TO A MORE SUSTAINABLE AND EFFICIENT FUTURE “We have a very privileged point of view: we share the strategic and economic driven attitude of companies, know the theoretical possibilities expressed by O.R. and have developed the software skills to transform consultancy into actionable processes. The possibilities for companies and public bodies to improve profitability, resilience, environmental impact and transform data into value is really large” says Matteo Pozzi, CEO of Optit. “Not all managers and decisionmakers are always aware of this potential, yet there is a growing consciousness of the value embedded in data and all we do is to unlock this by designing and implementing flexible solutions that support better decisions. The good news is that the return on investment is tangible, and we have defined a methodology to approach this process gradually, which helps developing the culture to resort to digital innovation with a very low risk profile.”
Energy optimisation “For example, in the energy sector” continues Pozzi, “the international and environmental situation requires us to
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radically change how we plan and build energy systems. O.R. and advanced analytics can be a very powerful tool in this compelling transformation. There is a wide consensus among research and specialists, but this needs to be implemented both at the industrial, regulatory and policy level. We were lucky to initiate a collaboration, around 12 years ago, with the leading Italian utilities in the sector of urban district heating, eager to improve both the design of the network and the generation side, rapidly evolving towards more complex energy mixes with strong interconnection between heat and electricity coupling. Today, I devote a share of my time as Vice-Chair of DHC+, the Innovation and Knowledge hub of Euro Heat & Power, the Brusselbased organisation that supports the District Energy Industry unleash its potential to support the decarbonisation challenge, and we are working with the company that supplies energy to New York City re-think how digital innovation can support their transition into the new millennium. I hope not to be immodest if I say I feel very proud!”
One of the most recent EU-funded projects Optit has participated in is PlaMES, which provides a Decision Support System to assist energy decision makers in the long-term planning of multi-energy systems at regional or national level designed to achieve decarbonisation targets at the lowest overall cost. The very high complexity of the underlying models, designed by the RWTH University of Aachen, Fraunhofer Institut and the University of Bologna, is combined with an easy-to-use web platform that allows a smooth navigation of data and scenarios. “We hope that high usability and good user experience will be the key for adoption by public decision makers and transmission/distribution System Operators Planners, as we witness the growing need for audacious and forward-looking energy programmes that can lead us into a CO2 Neutral future!” remarks Pozzi.
Waste logistics optimisation The waste sector is another area that has a huge environmental impact in our time. O.R. and process optimisation can improve efficiency for operators while generating great benefits to the environment. (See a previous article in Impact: https://bit. ly/OptitWaste). “The seminal project at the origins of Optit was a tool to design efficient waste collection services. Today, we help the largest Italian utility leverage on its 100+ treatment plants managing over 5 million tons of waste every year. Our solution supports all planning processes, from the 4-year industrial plan to the weekly collection programme, providing a platform where each single transport is seamlessly allocated, implemented and reported involving all actors in the value chain, from the customer to the driver of the truck” remarks Fabio Lombardi “and we are now investing to leverage on our logistics platform to increase the capacity to implement innovative collection services that use fresh data coming from the field.”
Logistics and Supply Chain What Lombardi is referring to is the platform at the heart of the fastest growing market in Optit: logistics and supply chain. Rooted in the deep expertise of the founding partner Daniele Vigo, one of the leading experts worldwide in Vehicle Routing, a digital platform was designed to support planning and delivery of logistics services, ranging from routing, 3-d bin packing, zoning and flow optimisation.
“Our platform is used every day by a leading Food Processing Company to manage several hundred trips per day, fully integrated with the enterprise resource planning system, enabling the digital evolution of the existing transportation
planning process” says Claudio Caremi, “and the nice thing is that other customers use the same infrastructure with models that ensure the achievement of their specific and unique goals. Being full owners of every algorithm in a digital environment designed for superior flexibility and scalability is surely paying its dividends.”
A world leader in home appliance production, with factories all across Europe, reduced its transportation costs by increasing the load factor significantly. “Our solution creates optimised “same-day” solutions in batch form, providing insights into the management of successive days (such as possible mismatches between the volume of goods to be transported and the capacity of the vehicles scheduled), considering the possible unavailability of merchandise, changes in order priority, and every last-minute change. The integration of bin packing models (already developed in vertical projects in road as well as air cargo projects) in the planning process is adding yet another edge to the potential of our multifaceted offering” concludes Caremi.
AN INCREASINGLY INTERNATIONAL AND MULTI-FACETED PERSPECTIVE Science and mathematics know no boundaries, as does our research and attention for the latest development in our fields. Just like academic research benefits and grows from exchange and communication with different groups, Optit participates actively in its reference academic and business communities, playing its role as members of several international associations, together with selected strategic partnerships with leading industry players and an increasing role into EU-funded projects, like UpgradeDH, Retrofeed, the already mentioned PlaMES, and, most recently, TUPLES.
TUPLES (TrUstworthy Planning and scheduling with Learning and ExplanationS) aims at building trusted planning and scheduling systems that are safe, robust, explainable and efficient. Optit is part of a Consortium financed by the Horizon Europe framework programme that involves four Universities (Communauté d'université et d'établissements université fédérale de Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées (ANITI), Katholieke universiteit Leuven (KU LEUVEN), Universitat des Saarlanders (USAAR), Alma mater studiorum - Università di Bologna (UNIBO) and three industrial partners (Airbus, Optit and Scisports).
The objective of the TUPLES project is to develop hybrid planning and scheduling methods that combine the efficiency, flexibility and adaptability of data-driven learning approaches with the robustness, reliability, and understandability of model-based reasoning methods, designing the verification and explanation methods to provide the user with a high degree of visibility of the properties of the solutions produced by the systems, testing the approach across case studies ranging from airplane pilot assistance and manufacturing, to soccer team recruitment, energy production and waste collection management.
The project, which kicks off in October 2022 and will produce a Digital Lab and a self-assessment tool on trustworthiness of algorithms, will represent yet another landmark towards the integration of data driven and model-based approaches, fostering the integration of O.R. into the wider Artificial Intelligence domain.
PEOPLE REMAINS THE KEY SUCCESS FACTOR “Although born from the union of mathematics and software development, so called “hard sciences”, the key for success remains the human factor” Pozzi remarks. “In the end my main duty as entrepreneur is to create a good work environment, collaboration between the teams, and a good work-life balance. Employing passionate and talented people, the results emerge with little effort. It is thanks to this that we went through the pandemic with very little impact, and in fact we learned how to be even more flexible in our daily practice. The achievement of the last years set the basis for an even larger growth at international level and I am sure the best is yet to come!”
Michela Mattei has been Communication Manager of Optit since 2021. She has twenty years of experience as a communication and marketing specialist. Michela witnessed the web portals gold rush and has known a world without social media. She remains very curious about tech novelties but is convinced that communication always works more or less in the same way, a challenging way. Daughter of an early Cobol engineer and granddaughter of an entrepreneur she has always been passionate about science and industry, and how the two fumble together.
UNIVERSITIES MAKING AN IMPACT
EACH YEAR STUDENTS on MSc programmes in analytical subjects at several UK universities spend their last few months undertaking a project, often for an organisation. These projects can make a significant impact. This issue features reports of projects recently carried out at one of our universities: University of Edinburgh. If you are interested in availing yourself of such an opportunity, please contact the Operational Research Society at email@ theorsociety.com
GREENING ISLAY’S WHISKY PRODUCTION (Nikolas Heinloth, University of Edinburgh, MSc Operational Research with Data Science)
In light of Scotland’s net zero targets until 2045 and the omnipresent effects of human induced climate change through the emission of harmful greenhouse gases, renewable energy technologies and efficient approaches to harnessing the energy produced for consumers are moving to the centre of public attention.
Nikolas’s project explored how to cost-effectively unlock the abundance of Scottish renewable wind energy resources available by coupling it to green hydrogen production for the purposes of industrial decarbonisation – in this case focussed on the highly energy intensive whisky industry clustered on the Hebridean island of Islay. The work was commissioned by EMRC, an independent consultancy providing energy market, regulatory, techno-economic and financing advice for electricity, renewables and gas sector clients globally, with the overarching objective of helping to deliver reliable access to affordable and clean energy.
His work covered many technoeconomic questions including: • How to optimally design and size the electrolyser and the hydrogen delivery system, given the intermittency of offshore wind, the constant industrial heat requirement from the distilleries and the transportation constraints. • How best to deploy storage mechanisms – through input battery storage systems or through hydrogen storage at the output of the electrolyser. • How financially viable the project is in terms of the surcharge required on retail price of whisky or the financial support required for hydrogen production in order to make to make it competitive with the financial costs of current fossil fuel systems.
Based on a thorough discussion of various engineering aspects, different cutting edge technologies, as well as the specific case in the Island of Islay, a selection of apt system components was made and their characteristics/ behaviours subsequently modelled mathematically. To meaningfully address significant uncertainties involved, such as the highly volatile electricity generation from wind, associated electricity prices or demand uptake, a complex two stage stochastic optimisation problem was set up.
The results of Nikolas’s optimisation, and comparisons made with alternative carbon efficient technologies show that hydrogen has the potential to play an important role in deep decarbonisation efforts of the distillery sector and support the net zero transition on the island. This is thanks to its versatility as an energy carrier allowing for efficient use of wind generation, the little effort necessary for technology conversions and its economic feasibility, as demonstrated by a thorough economic breakeven analysis. Furthermore, valuable insights surrounding the necessary plant components, their technologies, sizing and operation could be gained. By virtue of the exclusive electricity supply from renewable sources, the system is carbon neutral from day one and could, even for the most
conservative demand scenario, help to save 35,598t of carbon emissions making a valuable contribution towards a greener and more sustainable future.
If the positive effects were to materialise as expected, the Islay hydrogen project can serve as an important case study and model for further applications. Lessons learned from its implementation would undoubtedly lead to technology improvements and system enhancements, thus increasing the rollout potential across other municipalities.
Douglas Caskie, Project Supervisor and Chief Executive Officer, EMRC: “The Islay Green Hydrogen Project, which we designed for Nikolas, covers some of the ‘hot topics’ in energy provision – how to cost-effectively deploy ‘green hydrogen’ for the purposes of industrial decarbonisation – in this case focussed on the whisky industry clustered on the Hebridean island of Islay. Nikolas adeptly covered many techno-economic questions and provided the energy stakeholders on Islay an extremely useful modelling framework with which to base further analysis. Based on this work, there is a very strong case to be made for the decarbonisation of the island.”
This was a highly technical project that required a diverse set of skills across several disciplines such as physics, engineering and operational research. The work demonstrated an excellent practical application of O.R. in such a challenging domain.
