John W. Barnes

Dr. J. Wesley Barnes earned his Ph.D. in operations research from the University of Arkansas in 1971. He joined the faculty of The University of Texas at Austin in 1974. He is the graduate advisor for the  Operations Research and Industrial Engineering Program.

Dr. Barnes uses applied probability, statistical analysis and advanced direct search techniques to solve large-scale scheduling and routing problems in military logistics and manufacturing. He develops search methods that incorporate artificial intelligence technologies to systematically search through a staggeringly immense amount of solutions for specified problems and find excellent solutions. For example, Barnes developed a search method to solve an aerial fleet refueling problem for the U.S. Air Force that must be solved at the start of any large-scale deployment of U.S. military forces. Barnes’s method determined how to coordinate thousands of small aircraft flying from the U.S. to the Middle East with tanker aircraft staged at various places on their routes to provide sufficient amounts of fuel to efficiently refuel the small aircraft in midair and get them to their destinations on time. Barnes’s method showed it is possible to solve such complex scheduling and routing problems in about four hours. Previous methods required a team of six to eight people working two or three months to find a less-efficient solution.

Research Interests:

• Applied probability and statistical analysis
• Military logistics
• Vehicle routing
• Manufacturing scheduling

Selected Publications

1. G. Lambert , J.W. Barnes, and D. Van Veldhuizen, , "A Tabu Search Approach to the Strategic Airlift Problem", Military Operations Research , Vol. 12, (2007), pp. 59-79