Dr. Jennifer Ryan
University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL)
Friday, March 24, 2023
Tickle 500 2:15-3:15pm
Abstract:
We study the decision problem faced by the operator of a private 5G network, known as a private cell, who must allocate available capacity to meet the resource needs of the primary user of the network, but who may also make excess capacity available to external secondary users in order to generate additional revenue. Private cells are privately-owned, local wireless networks that are independent of commercial or public 5G networks. In recent years, such networks have been implemented in a variety of industrial settings, including factories, warehouses, and mines, and public settings such as hospitals, ports, and campuses. Private cells add value to users by providing dedicated wireless connectivity within a geographical region, which enables enhanced security, reliability, and cost-effectiveness. Private cells make use of network slicing, a technological advancement made available by 5G, to meet differentiated needs across applications. Specifically, through slicing, the network and its resources (such as bandwidth, computation, and storage) can be segmented to support specific services, applications, or devices, with each slice possessing a customized combination of latency, throughput, security, and bandwidth. Slicing also allows private cells to readily share their infrastructure with external entities, allowing excess capacity to be leased to secondary users. Given this setting, we study the problem faced by a private cell operator who must serve the needs of the primary user but who can also lease resources to a secondary user to generate revenue. The operator must determine which primary user demands will be admitted to the network for service and which resources can be leased to the secondary user. We use a Markov Decision Process model to formulate this problem and characterize the optimal admission and leasing decisions, which are made in real time based on the private cell’s current state.
Bio:
Jennifer K. Ryan is Professor and Department Chair for the Department of Supply Chain Management and Analytics (SCMA) in the College of Business at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). She also currently holds the Van Horne Family Endowed Chair in Business. Jennifer’s research and teaching interests are in the areas of inventory management, supply chain management and applied stochastic processes, and her research has been published in journals such as Management Science, Operations Research, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Decision Sciences and IISE Transactions. She is the recipient of several National Science Foundation (NSF) grants, including an NSF CAREER grant. Jennifer currently serves as the Focused Issue Editor for Supply Chain and Logistics for IISE Transactions. She previously served as an Associate Editor for Naval Research Logistics and OMEGA. Prior to joining UNL, Jennifer served as a faculty member in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the School of Business at University College Dublin (Ireland), the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame and in the School of Industrial Engineering at Purdue University. She holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences from Northwestern University and a B.A. in Mathematics and the Social Sciences from Dartmouth College.