José Fernando Oliveira

My main area of scientific activity is Operations Research and Management Science. Within Operations Research my main application area are the Cutting and Packing Problems, while from the techniques viewpoint my research is centered in the use and development of Metaheuristics approaches.

Cutting and Packing problems are hard combinatorial optimization problems that arise under several practical contexts, whenever big pieces of raw-material have to be cut into smaller items, or small items have to be packed inside a larger container, so that waste is minimized. These problems include hard geometric constraints when dealing with the optimization layer. I have also worked on Vehicle Routing Problem. My research on Lotsizing and Scheduling problems in industrial contexts, planogram optimization in retailing, and shared mobility mainly builds on my expertise on Metaheuristics.

I also work on the use of the quantitative methods, provided by Operations Research and Management Science, to support decision making in Higher Education institutions management, which includes workload models, sustainability, institutional benchmarking and assessment and evaluation of institutions and teaching staff.