Chair of Operations, Economics & Strategy

Robust Timing for Medical Screening

Published:27.05.26 — Medical tests are only valuable to the extent that they change what clinicians do next, and that value depends critically on how fast risk accumulates between “wait” and “act.” Recent research by Prof. Thomas A. Weber, presented at IEEE SCSE 2026, analyzes medical screening decisions when prevalence dynamics are misspecified. The work proposes a simple, robust rule with a relative performance guarantee, illustrated on post-exposure tuberculosis infection screening where timing choices span weeks to years and speed ambiguity is clinically consequential.

Self-Learning Part Feeder Wins “AI-Powered Innovation” Prize

Published:23.02.26 — Since 2019, every year the graduate course “Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Engineering” (MGT-555) brings together students from across EPFL to develop product-innovation projects with industry partners. Led by Prof. Véronique Michaud and Prof. Thomas A. Weber, the Autumn 2025 edition focused on “AI-Powered Innovation.” Seven multidisciplinary teams delivered working demonstrators and business cases, with explicit attention to sustainability and risk. The top prize (the 2025 IEE Prize) was awarded to Team 5 for “GRASP,” a self-learning robotic part-feeding add-on for flexible manufacturing, developed with HUMARD Automation. The runner-up was Team 1 for “OptiFlow,” an AI-powered shelf-layout and customer-flow optimization concept developed with Decathlon.

A New Measure for Decision-Making under Uncertainty

Published:13.11.25 — Decision-makers in business, finance, and policy frequently face situations where the best course of action is unclear—not because outcomes are risky in a probabilistic sense, but because essential information is missing. A new study by Prof. Thomas A. Weber (Chair of Operations, Economics and Strategy, EPFL) introduces a general metric to quantify such uncertainty based on observed decisions and outcomes. The paper, titled “A Measure of Decision-Based Payoff Uncertainty,” was presented at the 6th International Conference on Problems of Cybernetics and Informatics (PCI) and published by IEEE.