Oak Ridge National Laboratory  Center for Transportation Analysis  National Transportation Research Center  2360 Cherahala Boulevard  Knoxville, TN 37932  United States of America

(865) 576-5337 (office)  (865) 898-4533 (mobile)  hilliardmr@ornl.gov (email)

Specialty Research Areas:

• Defense Transportation
• Logistics and Supply Chain Management
• Modeling and Simulation
• Planning and Systems Analysis
  

Current or Recent Work:

• Ohio River Navigation Investment Model (ORNIM)
  Goal: Design and develop a system to model the transportation flows on the Ohio River System to support the Army Corps of Engineers analysis of alternative investment plans for the improvement of a system of 19 locks. This Java/web-based system will include an economic equilibrium model of the waterway system linked to an algorithm to optimally allocate the maintenance and construction budget to projects over a 50-year time horizon.
• AMC Deployment Analysis System (ADANS)
  Goal: Design and develop an integrated system for planning and scheduling USAF Air Mobility Command peacetime and wartime operations using state-of-the-art technologies from operations research, data base management, and systems engineering. Initial components of the system were deployed just prior to and during OPERATION DESERT SHIELD/STORM, and the system has been in continuous operation since that time. Through the use of an evolutionary prototyping methodology, the system has grown to support peacetime and wartime planning and scheduling tasks for the command.
• Machine Learning
  Goal: Investigate the capabilities of machine learning techniques and the application of these techniques to the development of heuristics for scheduling problems, solution of multi-objective optimization problems, and discovery of relationships in data sets. This internally funded research effort provided fundamental research into the applications of genetic algorithms.
• Detailer's Assistant
  Goal: Design and develop an expert system to assist the Navy enlisted detailer in assigning personnel to jobs. A demonstration of an application of expert system technology on a early personal computer demonstrated to the Navy some of the capabilities of the technology.
• AFWIS-AI Investigation
  Goal: Investigate the state of the art in applications of AI to Command and Control and recommend development efforts for the Air Force. Through a series of briefings and a national conference, we provided the Air Force with an overview of the emerging technology of artificial intelligence and indications of possible future trends.
• Scheduling Algorithm to Improve Lift (SAIL)
  Goal: Develop and implement an algorithm to schedule the deployment of Military Sealift Command vessels in crisis situations. The algorithms developed in this effort were later merged into the JFAST system now used by USTRANSCOM and other deployment analysts.
  

Significant Publications:

Committee on Naval Expeditionary Logistics, Naval Studies Board. Naval Expeditionary Logistics: Enabling Operational Maneuver From the Sea. National Academy Press.(1999), 1999

"The Computer as Partner in Algorithmic Design: Automated Discovery of Parameters for a Multi-Objective Scheduling Heuristic," Impacts of Recent Advances in Operations Research, editors R. Sharda, B.L. Golden, E.Wasil, O.Balei, and W.Stewart, North Holland, new York, 1989, with G.E.Liepins, M. Palmer, G. Rangarajan.

"Scheduling the Operation Desert Storm Airlift: An Advanced Automated Scheduling Support System", Interfaces 22:1, (January -February, 1992). pp. 131-146.

"Genetic Algorithms: Foundations and Applications," in Annals of Operations Research, 21 (1989) 31-58.

"Alternatives for Classifier System Credit Assignment," Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, (Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., 1989) 756-761. (Refereed Proceedings)

"Mission (Not) Impossible: New Scheduling tool plays a pivotal role in the largest airlift in history," OR/MS Today, April 1991, with Ronald D. Kraemer.

"Weighted Voting: Theory and Applications," Technical Report Number 609, School of O.R. and I.E., Cornell University, August 1983. (also available from University Microfilms)