Department of Industrial Engineering Seminar
Title: Operational Research for the Modelling of the Logistics of Offshore Wind Farms
Speaker: Dylan Jones (University of Portsmouth, Department of Mathematics)

Wednesday, April 6, 2016, 4.00 pm - IE Building, IE 227

ABSTRACT: This seminar will detail the author’s work building quantitative models for the logistics of the offshore wind industry. The models mainly arise from three European Union funded projects. Firstly, an overview of the current offshore wind sector will be given. Future developments and logistical challenges will then be outlined. A range of potential usage of Operational Research models will be discussed, concentrating on multiple criteria models.
The author will then present two quantitative models relating to logistics of offshore wind farms. The first model, concerned with location analysis of UK Round 3 wind farm sites, will be described in detail. An extended goal programming model will be built that considers socio-economic, technical, and environmental objectives. A weight sensitivity analysis method is applied and the results described. An overview of the second model, which relates to construction logistics in the presence of cost time trade-offs, will be given. A compromise programming model and results of its solution via heuristic and exact methods will be discussed. Overall conclusions regarding the use of quantitative models for decision support in the offshore wind industry will be drawn.

BIO: Dr Dylan Jones is a Professor of Operational Research based in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Portsmouth. He is the Director of the Centre of Operational Research and Logistics (CORL). Prof Jones’s main area of expertise is the theory and application of decision problems with multiple conflicting objectives. He has published over 50 scientific articles on this topic and a keynote book on goal programming. Prof Jones has worked extensively on the application of Operational Research in various fields of application including healthcare planning and logistics, management of networks of container ports, the logistics of marine renewable energy, financial portfolio selection, and socio-economic applications such as analysing cinema going behaviour. His work has been funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Royal Society, European Union, Operational Research Society, and Technology Strategy Board. Prof Jones has many international research collaborations but has particular links to Universities in Spain and Brazil.