ORSNZ Recap

I was at the OR Society of New Zealand conference last week, and failed to blog it.  I am so ashamed!  You can check out some pictures and other information about the conference at its site.  I was one of the speakers, so you can see me in action.

A highlight of the conference for me was the plenary session given by Gerard Cachon of Wharton, who is visiting the University of Auckland this year.  He gave a talk on the use of game theory in operations management.  I have been a little dubious of incredible fad for game theory in the analysis of supply chains.  The assumptions of game theory are pretty strong, and it is not clear that much of the analysis is giving any real insight.  Gerard is very aware of these limitations, and much of his talk was illustrating how difficult it is to conclude things from a game theoretic analysis.  For instance, there is often a huge problem with multiple equilibria, with game theory providing little guidance as to what the “right” equilibrium is.  After the talk, I felt much happier about game theory in OM:  as long as people are talking about the limitations, I can have much more confidence when they make conclusions.