Frans de Ruiter

Contact:
Email 1: frans dot deruiter at wur dot nl
Email 2: deruiter at cqm dot nl
LinkedIn

I am a research scientist at Wageningen University and Research and senior analytics consultant at CQM. With the help of analytics, I aim to make processes more resilient and sustainable. For this, I design and implement decision analytics solutions that make use of optimization, machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms.

I have obtained my PhD in Operations Research at Tilburg University in the Netherlands advised by Dick den Hertog and Dimitris Bertsimas from MIT. Prior to starting my PhD research I obtained a degree in Applicable Mathematics (MSc.) from the London School of Economics and a degree in Management Science and Operations Research (MSc.) from Tilburg University. My main research interests are centered around adaptive optimization under uncertainty, supply chain resilience and optimization problems that arise in real-world applications.

See also my full Curricilum Vitae.

Some years ago I gave an optimization course for the JADS Data Expert Program, for which I make the materials available for other teachers here.

NEWS

-- August 2023: Dinalog project on supply chain resilience!

Recently, we at Wageningen were awarded the Restretch project by Dinalog together with JADS and a consortium of industry partners including Vos Logistics, Hoogwegt, Nobian and Vion. During the next year, we are going to develop new analytical methods to assess and improve supply chain resilience with practical applications in industry.

-- Webinar Analytics for a Better World

At CQM we have made an analytic solution for the mobility problem affecting hundreds of thousand elderly and disabled citizens within the Valys program. Using state-of-the-art algorithms, we improved customer satisfaction and saved 100.000km a day. I presented our work at CQM duting the ``Analytics for a Better World Webinar'' hosted by the MIT Sloan Shool of Management, Cambridge US. The live recording can be watched below.

Publications

  • Approximation of hard uncertain convex inequalities, (with Ernst Roos, Jianzhe Zhen, Aharon Ben-Tal and Dick den Hertog), submitted, 2023. [Preprint],
  • Dual approach for two-stage robust nonlinear optimization, (with Jianzhe Zhen and Dick den Hertog), to appear in Operations Research, 2022. [Preprint],
  • Robust optimization for models with uncertain SOC and SDP constraints, (with Jianzhe Zhen, Ernst Roos and Dick den Hertog), Informs Journal on Computing, 34 (1), p196-210. 2021. [Preprint], [BibTeX]
  • Primal and dual approaches to adjustable robust optimization, PhD thesis Tilburg University, 2017. [Full thesis] [BibTeX][Code Chapter 1]
  • Robust optimization of uncertain multistage inventory systems with inexact data in decision rules, (with Aharon Ben-Tal, Ruud Brekelmans and Dick den Hertog), Computational Management Science, Computational Management Science, 14 (1), p45-77, 2017. [Article] [DOI] [BibTeX]
  • Duality in two-stage adaptive linear optimization: faster computation and stronger bounds, (with Dimitris Bertsimas), INFORMS Journal on Computing, 28 (3), p500-511, 2016. [Preprint] [DOI] [BibTeX]
  • The impact of the existence of multiple adjustable robust solutions, (with Ruud Brekelmans and Dick den Hertog), Mathematical Programming, 160 (1), p531-545, 2016. [Article] [DOI] [BibTeX]
    • [Slides]
  • Applications of integer programming methods to cages, (with Norman Biggs), The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, 22 (4), p4.35, 2015. [Article] [BibTeX]

Figure from paper ``Duality in two-stage adaptive linear optimization: faster computation and stronger bounds''.

Talks

  • EURO conferenceHelsinki (Finland), July 2022.
  • Research seminar, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen (The Netherlands), Online, May 2021.
  • Society of Decision Professionals, San Francisco Chapter Meeting, Online, September 2020.
  • Analytics for a Better World Webinar, Online, August 2020.
  • Optimization Seminar, Delft (The Netherlands), February 2020.
  • 6th International Conference on Continuous Optimization (ICCOPT), Berlin (Germany), August 2019.
  • 23th International Symposium on Mathematical Programming (ISMP), Bordeaux (France), July 2018.
  • Workshop Robust Optimization, Avignon (France), June 2018.
  • INFORMS Annual Meeting, Houston TX (USA), October 2017.
  • Conference on Computational Management Science (CMS), Bergamo (Italy), June 2017.
  • SIAM Conference on Optimization, Vancouver (Canada), May 2017.
  • 53th Dutch Mathematical Congeres: KWG prize finalist presentation, Utrecht (The Netherlands), April 2017.
  • AP seminar IBM Watson, Yorktown Heights NY (USA), November 2016.
  • INFORMS Annual Meeting, Nashville TN (USA), November 2016.
  • 5th International Conference on Continuous Optimization (ICCOPT), Tokyo (Japan), August 2016.
  • 2016 Optimization Days Conference, HEC Montreal, Montreal (Canada), May 2016.
  • Invited Research Seminar, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam (The Netherlands), February 2016.
  • 41th Conference on the Mathematics of Operations Research, Lunteren (The Netherlands), January 2016.
  • 22nd International Symposium on Mathematical Programming (ISMP), Pittsburgh PA (USA), July 2015.
  • 40th Conference on the Mathematics of Operations Research, Lunteren (The Netherlands), January 2015.
  • 11th International Conference on Applied Mathematical Optimization and Modelling (APMOD), Warwick (UK), April 2014.
  • Annual meeting of the Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research (VVS+OR), Utrecht (The Netherlands), March 2014.
  • Management Science seminar series, London School of Economics, London (UK), March 2014.

Teaching

  • Spring 2020-2024: Robust Optimization
    (PhD level course, LNMB, partly online)
  • 2017-2020: Optimization Case Studies
    (JADS expert program, JADS acadamy for Data Science in den Bosch)