Title: Optimal routing under demand surge: the value of future arrival rate information

Abstract: With the growing availability of advanced demand forecasting models, an important operations question is how to utilize this information to make better resource allocation decisions, especially when facing demand surges. In this work, we design surge routing policies that explicitly incorporate future arrival rates for multi-class multi-pool parallel-server systems with partial flexibility. Our proposed policy is easy to interpret and achieves near-optimal performance. The analysis quantifies the benefit of having access to future arrival rate information. Our development is based on optimal control theory. I will also talk about how to apply what we learn from optimal control to develop numerical algorithms for skill-based routing problems.

Bio: Jing Dong is the Regina Pitaro Associate Professor of Business in the Decision, Risk, and Operations Division at Columbia Business School. Her research is at the interface of applied probability and service operations management, with a special focus on patient flow management in healthcare delivery systems. She received an NSF CAREER Award in 2020. She currently serves on the editorial boards of Operations Research, Mathematics of Operations Research, Management Science, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, and Operations Research Letters. She received her Ph.D. in Operations Research from Columbia University. Before joining Columbia Business School, she was on the faculty of Northwestern University.