The Twenty-Second Annual Mathematical Problems in Industry Workshop

June 12-16, 2006

The challenge facing business and industry is to prosper in an era of rapid technological growth. Meeting the challenge requires continually improving productivity, resource management, and innovation, both to refine existing products and processes, and to create new ones.

• Clarification and formulation of a proposed or existing process
• Methods to solve problems of interest to industry
• Links with applied mathematicians and scientists from universities and national laboratories
• Access to advanced computing solutions and environments
• Cost-effective consulting
• Fresh input of new ideas

During the workshop, engineers and scientists from industry interact with the academic participants on problems of interest to their companies. In the past, these problems have included, but are not limited to

• Engineering and product design
• Process design and control
• Environmental remediation
• Scheduling and optimization
• Financial modeling

This lively five-day interaction begins with the industry representatives presenting their problems to the group of attendees. For the rest of the week, the workshop participants break into small working groups consisting of senior faculty and attending scientists, students, and the industrial representatives, to discuss and tackle the problems in an informal setting. Examples of problems brought to recent workshops include:

• Stability of the Oil-Air Boundary in Fluid Dynamic Bearings of Hard Disk Drives (Hitachi GST)
• Enhanced Leak Detection (Gilbarco/Veeder-Root)
• Lubricating Layer Perturbations in Chemical-Mechanical Polishing (Araca, Inc.)
• Need a Lift? An Elevator Queuing Problem (United Technologies)
• Multiphase Flow in a Thin Porous Material (W.L. Gore)

On the last day of the workshop, an academic representative from each group presents the results obtained and discusses possible future directions. A written report detailing the progress made during the workshop is prepared subsequently and sent to the industry representatives. The format of the workshop is not strict and some variation is possible. The MPI 2006 Organizing Comittee is committed to working with representatives from industry to meet their needs.