Travel Grant: FOCAPO 2008: Multi-Scale Integration of R&D, Manufacturing, and Optimization for Enterprise-Wide Operations

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ABSTRACTPI: Marianthi IerapetritouInstitution: Rutgers UniversityProposal Number: 0638947Title: FOCAPO 2008: Multi-Scale Integration of R&D, Manufacturing, and Optimization for Enterprise-Wide OperationsThis travel grant is support for the fifth conference on Foundations of Computer Aided Process Operations (FOCAPO) that will take place during the summer of 2008. The location of the conference will be most likely New England. FOCAPO 2008 will be sponsored by CACHE and CAST with possible additional sponsorships from INFORMS and APICS. The objective of the conference will be to create a forum where the main contributions in the area of process modeling and optimization will be discussed and the remaining challenges identified. The goal to expand the boundaries of process operations to include both smaller and larger scales and probe the problems that arise when modeling simultaneously considers smaller scales, down to the molecular level, as well as the whole supply chain. Bringing together academic and industrial participants, the conference will be a unique environment for discussion of past, present and potential future successes, as well as missed opportunities and failures. This should lead to the identification of road blocks and efficient ways to overcome these difficulties so that the future industrial process operations follow the advances achieved at academic institutions. It is therefore important to include participants from both industry as well as students who will be the future researches and practitioners in this area.FOCAPO 2008 plans on participation by at least 20 graduate students. Invited and contributed papers' sessions will be included, for a total of more than 50 papers. FOCAPO 2008 plans to attract around 150 participants with almost equal academic and industrial participation. Due to the nature of the topic and the increasing effects of globalization, international participation will be substantial. Intellectual Merit:The FOCAPO conference aims at promoting the exchange of ideas and the discussion of novel models, methodologies, solution procedures and innovative optimization approaches for process operations problems. The interaction of academics and industrial representatives is of particular importance and should lead to new collaborative projects of relevance in order to identify practical new problems in industry and publicize past academic advances.Broader Impact:The FOCAPO conferences bring together people (academics and industrial) from different disciplines, in particular chemical engineers, computer scientists, operations research, management science and industrial engineering to address pressing new problems in the area of process operations. They also identify existing bottlenecks to optimal productivity in the pharmaceutical, chemical, food, and agricultural industries. This should benefit U.S. industry and the U.S. economy.