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Geoffrey De Smet

@geoffreydesmet.bsky.social

PlanningAI expert, Timefold co-founder, OptaPlanner creator, complex scheduling and routing, Operations Research, Java, Kotlin, open source, international speaker

424 Followers  |  103 Following  |  78 Posts  |  Joined: 08.01.2024  |  1.8679

Latest posts by geoffreydesmet.bsky.social on Bluesky

Looking forward to it!

15.10.2025 05:27 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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The Sunk Cost Fallacy

After you've worked weeks on an improvement that turns out as not much of an improvement...

... this Pull Request appears ...

Mario Fusco @ #devoxx

12.10.2025 10:24 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Digital Identities, Fraud, and the Future of AI with Veriff & Timefold: The Secure Disclosure
YouTube video by The Secure Disclosure | Cyber, Sake, More. Digital Identities, Fraud, and the Future of AI with Veriff & Timefold: The Secure Disclosure

"Why can't you just have ChatGPT generate a schedule for you?"

In this podcast, Mackenzie Jackson and I didn't just drink sake, we also covered complex scheduling and routing with AI and founding a company.

Watch it here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=58CM...

10.10.2025 06:43 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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"Why haven't they fixed this yet?" @smarks.bsky.social and Maurice talking about ConcurrentException etc in #java at #devoxx

Great talk, but when they cover Vector and Hashtable, I can't stop and think:

"Why haven't they deprecated this yet?"

06.10.2025 11:59 β€” πŸ‘ 10    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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#Devoxx talk trial run in front of a "live" audience. πŸ˜… If you are at the conference, do say hello when you see me. 😊

05.10.2025 20:12 β€” πŸ‘ 23    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 0
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An Open Source project needs a real-time chat for the community to come together.

So we created a Discord chat for Timefold Solerv.

To ask questions.
To discuss ideas.
Or to figure out how to hack the solver to run your crazy experiment.

Join us:
discord.gg/976RcEVVHW

03.10.2025 11:52 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Geoffrey De Smet: From a hobby to building a company
YouTube video by Optimization4All Geoffrey De Smet: From a hobby to building a company

In the Optimization4All podcast, Cristina Radu and I talked about Operations Research, starting a company and Timefold.

Watch the podcast:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrLb...

18.09.2025 12:46 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Today is the day... πŸ€©β˜•οΈπŸ”₯ #Java

16.09.2025 09:31 β€” πŸ‘ 14    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

This way he won't be to install himself in a train seat.

06.09.2025 08:55 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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If it takes 10 000 hours to master a craft,
what do you get for 10 000 commits?

Timefold Solver, our Open Source solver for complex scheduling and routing problems, just reached 10 000 commits on GitHub:
github.com/TimefoldAI/t...

25.08.2025 08:13 β€” πŸ‘ 9    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Can the optimal solution for a Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) have crossing paths?

No, it cannot.
Because of the Triangle Inequality principle.

But in reality, it can.
Because there's road infrastructure: highways, one-way streets, etc.

In the real-world, solution optimality is rarely obvious.

01.08.2025 08:27 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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How to build trust in planning optimization: Explainable PlanningAI Optimization algorithms can spit out mathematically brilliant schedules, but if planners can’t see the rationale, those β€œperfect” plans end up in the…

A great plan is worthless if you can't explain why.

For the operators to trust your software, they need more than a button to "Schedule with AI" that generates the optimized schedule for their employees.

They need explainability. Learn how by @tomcools.be :
timefold.ai/blog/explain...

09.07.2025 12:40 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Vehicle Routing Problems in production: When research meets reality
YouTube video by Timefold Vehicle Routing Problems in production: When research meets reality

Vehicle Routing Problems in production:
When research meets reality.

Our webinar yesterday covered:
- Maps integration
- Time calculation
- Hard constraints in reality
- Multi-objective optimization
- Real-time planning

See the recording:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=l12G...

26.06.2025 07:24 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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That moment when your backend algorithms optimize a vehicle routing dataset with thousands of visits...

... and your frontend turns into a piece of modern art.

21.06.2025 13:44 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Doh. I meant float instead of int.

15.06.2025 17:52 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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This is what happens if you use floating point numbers (int, double in #Java) for financial data.

Use decimal numbers (BigDecimal in Java) instead.

15.06.2025 10:25 β€” πŸ‘ 33    πŸ” 15    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0
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Where does your enterprise stand on the scheduling maturity ladder?

Are your resources scheduled manually?
With or without constraint verification?

Or automatically?
With or without optimization?

Discover the 4 Levels of Scheduling:
timefold.ai/blog/the-4-l...

06.06.2025 06:45 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Can LLMs solve scheduling or routing problems?

Can GenAI help companies save millions of dollars by optimizing Vehicle Routing, Shift Rostering or Job Scheduling to increase productivity and retention?

@tomcools.be and I tried it out:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=m12A...

#VRP #AI #PlanningAI #DevoxxFr

18.05.2025 07:49 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Release Timefold Solver 1.22.0 Β· TimefoldAI/timefold-solver We're even more excited than usual to bring you this release. Sure, it has the usual fixes and improvements, but it also brings... drumroll please... Declarative shadow variables (Preview) We've he...

Our team has just released Declarative Shadow Variables (Preview) with our #opensource Timefold Solver 🀩 . It's easier than ever to calculate shadow variables.

As a preview feature, the API is not yet set in stone and we are actively looking for feedback. πŸ‘

github.com/TimefoldAI/t...

28.04.2025 13:27 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Most publications of the Vehicle Routing Problem only cover the tip of the iceberg.

Benchmarks and academic papers typically only handle vehicle capacity (CVRP) and time windows (VRPTW)

But production deployments also need to deal with many other requirements.

#OperationsResearch #PlanningAI #AI

21.04.2025 11:35 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Discover how AI can step up when LLMs fall short in scheduling. Join @tomcools.be and dive into Timefold, a Java-based AI solver that optimises schedules using advanced math. See live demos and enhance your problem-solving skills!

Session details @ buff.ly/TePAVmY

19.04.2025 17:02 β€” πŸ‘ 12    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 1

But it doesn't stop there.

We're working on two exciting, big new features for Timefold Solver. Both are game changers to tackle real-world Operations Research problems.
More on that later. Stay tuned!

10.04.2025 09:37 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Timefold Solver is still the foundation of everything we do at Timefold, so we continue to invest in it, with our dedicated solver team.

Since we forked from OptaPlanner, we've made it faster, easier to use and more flexible to deal with real-world requirements, such fairness and resource limits.

10.04.2025 09:37 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Our Open Source solver now has a dedicated home: solver.timefold.ai

It's a place for the Timefold Solver community,
with everything you need to build a solution
for any planning, scheduling or routing optimization problem.

Is there anything missing that you would like to see on solver.timefold.ai?

10.04.2025 09:35 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

What's the use case you're dealing with?

26.03.2025 07:10 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Driver costs for the Vehicle Routing Problem
YouTube video by Timefold Driver costs for the Vehicle Routing Problem

How to minimize driver costs for the Vehicle Routing Problem.

In this video, I cover dealing with a mixed fleet of employees and contractors. As well as overtime costs.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Foa...

#OperationsResearch #VRP #FieldService #AI #PlanningAI

26.03.2025 06:52 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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The quickstarts readme for our open source solver had a make-over!

It's now easier to find the right example and start solving your scheduling or routing problem with #PlanningAI.

Try it out:
github.com/TimefoldAI/t...

25.03.2025 15:26 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Thanks :)

11.02.2025 11:25 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Thank you!

11.02.2025 01:06 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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How I built an AI company to save my open source project The story of Timefold: how we turned a doomed open source project into a fast-growing PlanningAI company.

How I built an AI company to save my open source project

On this day, 3 years ago, my world fell apart. It was a Thursday. I just finished my second meeting that morning, looked at my inbox and realized it was over. My life’s work was over.

Read more:
timefold.ai/blog/how-i-b...

10.02.2025 16:46 β€” πŸ‘ 43    πŸ” 14    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 1

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