Fengqi You's research is within the areas of Process System Engineering (PSE) and Operations Research/Management Science (OR/MS), including the following topics:

• Large-Scale Numerical Optimization Methods and Decomposition Algorithms
  • Mixed-Integer Linear/Nonlinear Programming (MILP/MINLP), Nonlinear Programming (NLP) and Global Optimization
  • Stochastic Programming, Chance Constraint Programming, Logic Optimization and Constraint Programming
• Enterprise-Wide Optimization
  • Supply Chain Design and Operations, Inventory Management, Responsivness, Leadtime Reduction
  • Planning, Scheduling, Process Modeling/Optimization
  • Decision-Making under Uncertainty, Risk Management, Robust Optimization
• Monte Carlo (MC) Simulation and Density Functional Theory (DFT)

Representative publications are available here.

PSE

Process System Engineering (PSE) is a relatively new research area which kept evolving since it was "born" in 1961. Traditional PSE is concerned with the development of methods for the design, operation and control of chemical processes. Current environment require chemical industry to have an integrated view across all the operations and optimize the enterprise as one single unit. To provide the methods and tools that assist chemical industry to meet the needs , the research areas in PSE has broadened its scope. According to the recent definition of PSE by Grossmann and Westerberg (AIChE Journal, 2000, 46 (9), 1700-1703)

"Process System Engineering is is concerned with the improvement of decision-making processes for the creation and operation of the chemical supply chain. It deals with the discovery, design, manufacture, and distribution of chemical products in the context of many conflicting goals."

Thus, PSE has expanded its scope towards R&D activities on the one hand (e.g. molecular design, crystallography), and towards logistics on the other hand (e.g. enterprise-wide supply chain management). In other words, it involves several stages of the chemical supply chain, which can be well described by the following figure by Marquardt, etc.(AIChE Symp. Ser. 323, 2000, Vol. 96, 192-214)

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EWO

Enterprise-Wide Optimization (EWO) is a new frontier of PSE, recently proposed by Grossmann (AIChE Journal, 2005, 51(7), 1846-1857), and has become a major goal for the process industries due to increasing pressures for remaining competitive in the global marketplace. The key features of EWO include integration of the information and the decision-making among the various functions that comprise the whole supply chain of a company. Specifically, EWO involves optimizing the operations of supply, manufacturing and distribution activities of a company to reduce costs and inventories. The major operational activities include planning, scheduling, real-time optimization and inventory control. Supply chain management might be considered as an equivalent term for describing EWO, while many process companies are adopting the term enterprise-wide optimization to reflect both the importance of manufacturing within their supply chain, as well as the drive to reduce costs through optimization.

I'm a member of the EWO Collaborative Project which involves a special interest group of process companies and a multidisciplinary team of researchers from chemical engineering, operations research and industrial engineering departments. Through the EWO project, I have been collaborating with The Dow Chemical Company and Praxair, Inc.

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