The Decision Intelligence Lab
The Decision Intelligence Lab
Podcast Description
The Decision Intelligence Lab explores practical challenges of applying data science, analytics, and AI to drive real-world business outcomes.
Hosted by Prof. Michael Watson (Northwestern University) and Prof. Vijay Mehrotra (University of San Francisco) — both seasoned entrepreneurs, consultants, and researchers — this podcast delivers real-world insights for data professionals, business leaders, & anyone seeking to leverage data for smarter decision making. Each episode features leaders sharing how smarter decisions are reshaping business and technology. Subscribe to join the conversation.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast explores themes like the impact of AI on engineering education, the factors that lead to data science project failures, and risk management in AI projects. Specific episodes have discussed topics such as the importance of resiliency in engineering, organizational maturity's role in data science success, and frameworks for risk mitigation like the Princeton 20.
The Decision Intelligence Lab explores practical challenges of applying data science, analytics, and AI to drive real-world business outcomes.
Hosted by Prof. Michael Watson (Northwestern University) and Prof. Vijay Mehrotra (University of San Francisco) — both seasoned entrepreneurs, consultants, and researchers — this podcast delivers real-world insights for data professionals, business leaders, & anyone seeking to leverage data for smarter decision making. Each episode features leaders sharing how smarter decisions are reshaping business and technology. Subscribe to join the conversation.
Make better business decisions with data and AI—subscribe to The Decision Intelligence Lab Newsletter at https://decisionintelligencelab.substack.com/.
Geoffrey De Smet built a scheduling solver as a side project and ended up with a NASA supplier, big telcos, and pest control companies running on it.
The Timefold co-founder and OptaPlanner creator joins Vijay and Mike to talk field service routing: hundreds of technicians, tens of thousands of jobs, and the chaos of a real day in the field. They also discuss why plans are useless but planning is essential, why a 90% feasible schedule is 100% useless, why operators reject schedules they can't interrogate and what it took to leave a steady job when his life's work became roadkill after the IBM–Red Hat acquisition.
If you've ever wondered why the world still runs on scheduling spreadsheets, this one's for you.
Chapters
0:00 – Preview & Introduction
1:00 – Meet Geoffrey De Smet, Co-founder Timefold
1:20 – What is field service routing?
3:05 – Non-disruptive replanning and uncertainty
10:25 – What-if simulations
11:35 – Who uses Timefold Users
14:45 – The telecom case: ROI and trade-offs of optimization
18:05 – Spreadsheets and scheduling problems
19:10 – From OptaPlanner to Timefold: The Origin story
26:23 – Customising the model
28:20 – Explainability deep dive
30:28 – Where LLMs fit
31:50 – Trust, feasibility, constraints and the operator's never-ending world
35:23 – The Leap: leaving a steady job, six months of burning savings
38:07 – Go-to-market challenges
40:40 – Closing thoughts
Follow the show
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/the-decision-intelligence-lab/id1811085064
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0lFoAVKqJHTYSZNpeN61ou?si=0ae973aab0174b3b
Connect with guest
Geoffrey De Smet: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ge0ffrey/
Timefold: https://timefold.ai
Timefold Solver: https://timefold.ai/solver
Connect with hosts
Prof. Vijay Mehrotra (University of San Francisco): https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijay-mehrotra-ba9498/
Prof. Michael Watson (Northwestern University): https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-watson-07600a1
About the podcast
The Decision Intelligence Lab podcast delivers real-world insights for data professionals, business leaders, and anyone seeking to leverage data & AI for smarter decision-making & successful business outcomes.
For business inquiries, email at [email protected]
Disclaimer
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