The Australian Research Council (ARC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ms Judi Zielke PSM, today officially launched the ARC Training Centre in Optimisation Technologies, Integrated Methodologies, and Applications (OPTIMA) in Melbourne.
Led by the University of Melbourne, the OPTIMA Training Centre helps companies and organisations of all types to address large-scale and complex challenges and gives industry decision-making tools to grow Australia's business competitiveness.
"OPTIMA's goal is to produce an industry-ready toolkit of the full range of what are known as optimisation methodologies, that will help enterprises tackle highly multifaceted challenges. The toolkit will reduce lead times and financial and environmental savings, whilst at the same time improve efficiency and quality," Ms Zielke said.
"Currently OPTIMA is working with Melbourne Water on mitigating flood risks by understanding better when water from dams and water tanks should be released, while protecting habitats in freshwater ecosystems."
OPTIMA is also working with AGL optimizing their wind farms, leading to cheaper green energy and savings to consumers, and with Boeing to not just make aircraft faster and cheaper, but also safer.
The ARC is investing $4.8 million over 5 years in this Training Centre under the Industrial Transformation Research Program. The Centre is also receiving $2.9 million from participating universities and partner organisations and $5.6 million in in-kind support.
Industrial Transformation Training Centres facilitate collaboration between Australia's most innovative researchers and industries.
"As a Training Centre, OPTIMA is producing a highly skilled workforce of change agents for industrial transformation, with a plan to train more than 120 young researchers," Ms Zielke said.
In this collaboration, the University of Melbourne has partnered with Lancaster University and the University of Warwick, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and 8 industry partners, and has engaged 4 post doctorates, 40 associated investigators, and 50 students.
