The Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR) group at IIT Delhi organized an insightful seminar on April 21, 2025, featuring Dr. Abhishek Roy, Principal Data Scientist at Locus, a leading company specializing in intelligent logistics solutions. In his talk, titled “Routing in the Real-World”, Dr. Roy delved into the fascinating journey of designing and building a routing engine from the ground up, which is now successfully deployed across industries worldwide to optimize complex logistics operations.
The seminar focused on the crucial role of vehicle routing in last-mile delivery, a multi-trillion-dollar global industry that drives the efficiency of modern e-commerce and logistics. Dr. Roy highlighted how effective routing not only ensures timely deliveries but also optimizes fuel consumption, fleet utilization, and driver satisfaction, leading to both economic and environmental benefits.
A key theme of the talk was understanding the trade-offs between exact optimization techniques and heuristic approaches. Dr. Roy provided an inside view of how theoretical models are adapted to meet real-world challenges, where speed, scalability, and reliability often take precedence over mathematical perfection. He shared several practical insights into the complexities of implementing routing algorithms at scale, including dealing with dynamic traffic patterns, delivery constraints, and customer demands, all while balancing business objectives and operational realities.
The session concluded with an engaging Q&A, where students and faculty discussed the intersection of algorithms, optimization, and business applications, and explored how academic research can directly contribute to solving large-scale industrial problems.