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Geoffrey De Smet built a scheduling solver as a side project and ended up with a NASA supplier, big telcos, and pest control companies running on it.
The Timefold co-founder and OptaPlanner creator joins Vijay and Mike to talk field service routing: hundreds of technicians, tens of thousands of jobs, and the chaos of a real day in the field. They also discuss why plans are useless but planning is essential, why a 90% feasible schedule is 100% useless, why operators reject schedules they can't interrogate and what it took to leave a steady job when his life's work became roadkill after the IBM–Red Hat acquisition.
If you've ever wondered why the world still runs on scheduling spreadsheets, this one's for you.
Chapters
0:00 - Preview & Introduction
1:00 - Meet Geoffrey De Smet, Co-founder Timefold
1:20 - What is field service routing?
3:05 - Non-disruptive replanning and uncertainty
10:25 - What-if simulations
11:35 - Who uses Timefold Users
14:45 - The telecom case: ROI and trade-offs of optimization
18:05 - Spreadsheets and scheduling problems
19:10 - From OptaPlanner to Timefold: The Origin story
26:23 - Customising the model
28:20 - Explainability deep dive
30:28 - Where LLMs fit
31:50 - Trust, feasibility, constraints and the operator's never-ending world
35:23 - The Leap: leaving a steady job, six months of burning savings
38:07 - Go-to-market challenges
40:40 - Closing thoughts
Follow the show
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/the-decision-intelligence-lab/id1811085064
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0lFoAVKqJHTYSZNpeN61ou?si=0ae973aab0174b3b
Connect with guest
Geoffrey De Smet: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ge0ffrey/
Timefold: https://timefold.ai
Timefold Solver: https://timefold.ai/solver
Connect with hosts
Prof. Vijay Mehrotra (University of San Francisco): https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijay-mehrotra-ba9498/
Prof. Michael Watson (Northwestern University): https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-watson-07600a1
About the podcast
The Decision Intelligence Lab podcast delivers real-world insights for data professionals, business leaders, and anyone seeking to leverage data & AI for smarter decision-making & successful business outcomes.
For business inquiries, email at decisionintelligencepodcast@gmail.com
