Dr Michael Forbes
Dr

Michael Forbes

Email: 
Phone: 
+61 7 336 53807

Background

Dr Forbes has an extensive background in applying optimisation methods to industrial problems. He spent over 20 years working in industry before returning to academia in 2010. Dr Forbes now focuses on building Mixed Integer Programming models for industrial applications and specialised techniques for solving difficult Mixed Integer Programming models.

Dr Forbes has experience in many application areas including

  • vehicle routing;
  • supply chain optimisation;
  • mine planning;
  • public transport vehicle and crew scheduling and rostering (buses, trains and planes);
  • hospital staff scheduling and rostering, including operation scheduling and room allocation;
  • power generation and planning;
  • network design (communications, electricity, gas, water);
  • maintenance scheduling.

Availability

Dr Michael Forbes is:
Available for supervision

Fields of research

Applied mathematics Information and Computing Sciences Mathematical Sciences Numerical computation and mathematical software Operations research Theory of computation

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy, The University of Queensland

Research interests

  • Combining Dantzig-Wolfe and Benders Decomposition

    Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition is relatively straightforward to apply when all composite variables can be enumerated. However, this is often not the case. Instead we can enumerate variables corresponding to the solution of some smaller subproblem and have a more complex master problem that joins them. This often entails the use of Benders decomposition to solve the master problem. This technique has been successfully applied to a number of vehicle routing problems. My team is investigating how to apply the techique to other areas. Honours and HDR projects are available.

  • Multi-objective robust mine planning

    Traditional mine planning has focussed on economic objectives (e.g. maximum profit) and assumed the data is deterministic. More realistically, multiple objectives should be considered, including profit, environmental impact and social impact. Additionally, the underlying uncertainty of the data (cost of mining, selling price of ore, ore grade, etc) should be considered so that solutions are robust across many scenarios. This research looks to acheive these outcomes. Honours and HDR projects are available.

  • No overlap constraints

    No overlap constraints are powerful constraints used by Constraint Programming engines such as Google's OR-Tools. On many scheduling problems they substantially outperform equivalent Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) models. This research will look at the implementation of no overlap constraints to decide if it can be understood as a classical MIP extension (e.g. Logic Based Benders Decomposition) and implemented more directly using a MIP solver. An Honours project is available.

  • Optimal tanglegrams

    A tanglegram is a pair of trees on the same set of leaves with matching leaves in the two trees joined by an edge. Tanglegrams are widely used in biology to compare evolutionary histories of host and parasite species and to analyze genes of species in the same geographical area. The problem arises as to how to sort the trees so as to minimise various objectives relating to edges crossing or edge length. New formulations and solution techniques may be possible. An Honours project is available.

Research impacts

Dr Forbes' work has had practical impact in many areas.

  • His early work on vehicle scheduling for public transport is still widely cited and the basic approach is used in many implementations.
  • Algorithms he initially developed are still the mainstay of rail journey planning in many countries, especially the UK.
  • He holds a patent for fibre optic network design using integer programming. Versions of the algorithms described in the this patent are used to design fibre optic networks around the world, including for the NBN in Australia.

Search Professor Michael Forbes’s works on UQ eSpace

27 works between 1991 and 2025
All (27) Journal Article (25) Conference Publication (2)

21 - 27 of 27 works

2017

Journal Article

Puzzle - The Fillomino Puzzle

Pearce, Robin and Forbes, Michael (2017). Puzzle - The Fillomino Puzzle. INFORMS Transactions on Education, 17 (2), 85-89. doi: 10.1287/ited.2016.0166

Puzzle - The Fillomino Puzzle

2017

Conference Publication

Approach to large distribution network optimisation using modern implementation of benders decomposition

D'Addio, Nathan, Abeygunawardana, Anula, Forbes, Michael, Ledwich, Gerard and Shafiei, Mehdi (2017). Approach to large distribution network optimisation using modern implementation of benders decomposition. 24th International Conference and Exhibition on Electricity Distribution, CIRED 2017, Glasgow, Scotland, 12-15 June 2017. IEEE. doi: 10.1049/oap-cired.2017.0727

Approach to large distribution network optimisation using modern implementation of benders decomposition

2017

Conference Publication

Planning dragline positioning sequence with A* search algorithm

Liu, Haoquan, Kearney, Michael and Forbes, Michael (2017). Planning dragline positioning sequence with A* search algorithm. 20th World Congress of the International-Federation-of-Automatic-Control (IFAC), Toulouse, France, 9 - 14 July 2017. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier Science BV. doi: 10.1016/j.ifacol.2017.08.1924

Planning dragline positioning sequence with A* search algorithm

1999

Journal Article

Production of locomotive rosters for a multi-class single-locomotive problem

Al-Amin, M, Forbes, MA and Noble, DH (1999). Production of locomotive rosters for a multi-class single-locomotive problem. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 50 (10), 1004-1010. doi: 10.1057/palgrave.jors.2600802

Production of locomotive rosters for a multi-class single-locomotive problem

1994

Journal Article

Budi - a Software System for Bus Dispatching

Forbes, MA, Holt, JN, Kilby, PJ and Watts, AM (1994). Budi - a Software System for Bus Dispatching. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 45 (5), 497-508. doi: 10.1057/jors.1994.77

Budi - a Software System for Bus Dispatching

1994

Journal Article

Network Optimization Applied to Reclamation Works in Coal-Mining

Forbes, MA, Holt, JN and Watts, AM (1994). Network Optimization Applied to Reclamation Works in Coal-Mining. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 45 (2), 143-150. doi: 10.1057/jors.1994.20

Network Optimization Applied to Reclamation Works in Coal-Mining

1991

Journal Article

Exact Solution of Locomotive Scheduling Problems

Forbes, MA, Holt, JN and Watts, AM (1991). Exact Solution of Locomotive Scheduling Problems. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 42 (10), 825-831. doi: 10.1057/jors.1991.163

Exact Solution of Locomotive Scheduling Problems

Current funding

  • 2023 - 2027
    Analytics for the Australian Grains Industry (AAGI)
    Grains Research & Development Corporation
    Open grant

Availability

Dr Michael Forbes is:
Available for supervision

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Supervision history

Current supervision

Completed supervision

Enquiries

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