I am excited to share that I just took second place in the ORSSA National Student Competition! It's a yearly contest run by the Operations Research Society of South Africa (ORSSA), aimed at promoting OR work among university students across the country.

My entry was based on my final year undergraduate project, where I tackled the challenging retail problem of optimize stock placement in distribution centers (commonly called slotting). I developed a mathematical model to evaluate different stock arrangements, looking at two key factors: minimizing the distance stock pickers need to walk when assembling orders, while also reducing bottlenecks and congestion between the aisles.

The output of my work was a decision support tool that helps inventory managers find the sweet spot between these competing goals. What made it particularly interesting was testing it with real data from an actual distribution center, which let me compare the layouts recommended by my system against their current setup.

The competition was tough, with submissions from several institutions in South Africa. Although I did not win the Gerhard Geldenhuys Medal, I am thrilled to have come in as the runner-up and grateful for the recognition. I owe a huge thanks to my supervising lecturer who nominated my project and guided me throughout as well as to ORSSA for giving fourth-year students like me a platform to showcase our work.