John Blake Sooter

Author: John Sooter | Major: Industrial Engineering | Semester: Spring 2023

My name is Blake Sooter; I am an honors student in the Department of Industrial Engineering. This Spring marked my third semester of funded research. This summer, I am interning at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, OH.

My research mentor is Dr. Chase Rainwater, whom I met in a first semester programming class in the Spring of 2021. Since then, I’ve been a beneficiary of his mentorship for my own projects as well as an undergraduate teaching assistant for his courses. I’ve also assisted with one of his grant-funded projects. Building a relationship with faculty early on has made a huge difference in my college experience!

Currently, I’m building a web-app to deliver the power of Google OR-Tools’ suite of optimization algorithms to users with limited experience in operations research. This idea was born out of a few things-my interest in coding, existing difficulties for small companies and individuals to use classical optimization in their lives, and the need for our field to better explain what it is that industrial engineers do.

Though optimization techniques can become quite complex, the fundamental ideas behind them are not. Yet, there is a gap in our ability to explain the field to those who have no knowledge of it. Solving this problem is the motivation behind this work. In developing my objectives,  I leaned on my own experience as a student and the experience of teaching faculty to identify the gaps that this work can fill. Critically, I found three gaps that this work can address. First, optimization approaches should be integrated with the contextually relevant data sources and visualization. Second, the value of optimization should be illustrated with examples that apply to day-to-day life, making it easier to convey its purpose to high school students that are thinking about industrial engineering but may not appreciate examples sourced from a corporate environment that they have limited exposure to. Third, the product needs to be open source and readily available for trial online to drive usage with the intended constituency.

This semester, I’ve chosen to tackle four use cases: Vehicle routing, linear programming, time blocking, and generating high quality running routes. For vehicle routing, the user can choose a travel context (i.e. driving, walking, cycling), query a distance matrix with a copy/paste list of addresses, and see the proposed routes and vehicle directions. The linear programming module allows the user to build basic optimization models without having to install anything on their own machine. It also displays the graphical representation of a two-variable problem, important for teaching basic optimization theory. In a new spin on an old idea, the time blocking model implements a personal time management strategy nearly as old as calendars (see this article).  The module integrates with the standard calendar format, .ics, and harnesses an optimization model to block time to complete your tasks for the week during your preferred availability, while respecting your current appointments and minimizing the number of times you are interrupted.

Lastly, and still under development, the running route generation functionality aims to produce roundtrip running routes of the desired distance that rate highly for factors like safety, scenery, and elevation gain. This will be available in Fall 2023. The current version of the app is available here.

Moving forward, I’ll continue to refine and improve the app’s current functionality, complete the running route functionality, and visualize the knapsack problem. I’m also looking to identify an additional novel context for optimization to add to the app. If you’re reading this, any feedback is appreciated!

This past week, I was able to present on some of my past work, Open-Source Optimization of Green Last Mile Delivery Systems (blog). Honors research has been a great way to hone my presentation skills and become an independent learner.  I encourage everyone to find ways to stretch themselves!