Research Interests: Operations Research, Management Science, Large-Scale Optimization, Machine Learning for Operations Research, Optimization Proxies, Metaheuristics, Algorithm Configuration, Solvers

Publications

Published & Under Review

1. OCP Optimizes its Supply Chain for Africa

• Authors: Er Raqabi El Mehdi, Beljadid Ahmed, Bennouna Mohammed Ali, Bennouna Rania, Boussaadi Latifa, El Hachemi Nizar, El Hallaoui Issmail, Fender Michel, Jamali Mohamed Anouar, Si Hammou Nabil and Soumis François
• Deployed by our industry collaborator OCP Group, estimated impact of 5% in incremental turnover annually
• Winner at the EURO Excellence in Practice Award 2024
• Finalist at the IFORS Prize for OR in Development 2023
• Published in INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics, 2025

2. A Decomposition Matheuristic for the Transient Stability Constrained Unit Commitment at Hydro-Quebec

• Authors: Er Raqabi El Mehdi, Bani Abderrahman, Morabit Mouad, Blondin Alexandre, Besner Alexandre, Fournier Julien and El Hallaoui Issmaïl
• Published in IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 2025

3. Primal Methods For Very Large-scale Optimization

• Authors: Er Raqabi El Mehdi
• Ph.D. Thesis, Polytechnique Montreal, 2024

4. Towards Resilience: Primal Large-scale Re-optimization

• Authors: Er Raqabi El Mehdi, Wu Yong, El Hallaoui Issmaïl and Soumis François
• Part of the Project “OCP Optimizes its Supply Chain for Africa”
• Published in Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 2024

5. Incremental LNS Framework for Integrated Production, Inventory, and Vessel Scheduling: Application to a Global Supply Chain

• Authors: Er Raqabi El Mehdi, Himmich Ilyas, El Hachemi Nizar, El Hallaoui Issmaïl and Soumis François
• Deployed by our industry collaborator OCP Group, estimated impact of 5% in incremental turnover annually
• Part of the Project “OCP Optimizes its Supply Chain for Africa”
• Published in Omega, 2023

6. MPILS: An Automatic Tuner for MILP Solvers

• Authors: Himmich Ilyas∗, Er Raqabi El Mehdi∗, El Hachemi Nizar, El Hallaoui Issmaïl, Metrane Abdelmoutalib and Soumis François
• Deployed by our industry collaborator OCP Group, estimated impact of 5% in incremental turnover annually
• Part of the Project “OCP Optimizes its Supply Chain for Africa”
• Published in Computers & Operations Research, 2023

7. An Electric Vehicle Transitioning Framework for Public Fleet Planning

• Authors: Er Raqabi El Mehdi and Li Wenkai
• Published in Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 2023

8. The Primal Benders Decomposition

• Authors: Er Raqabi El Mehdi, El Hallaoui Issmaïl and Soumis François
• Part of the Project “OCP Optimizes its Supply Chain for Africa”
• Under Review

9. A Fair OR–ML Framework for Resource Substitution in Large-Scale Networks

• Authors: Mohan Ved, Er Raqabi El Mehdi and Van Hentenryck Pascal
• Under Review

10. ID-PaS: Identity-Aware Predict-and-Search for General Mixed-Integer Linear Programs

• Authors: Cai Junyang, Er Raqabi El Mehdi, Van Hentenryck Pascal and Dilkina Bistra
• Under Review

11. A Benders-based Branch-Price-and-Cut Algorithm for the Multi-Period Petrol Station Replenishment Problem

• Authors: Bani Abderrahman, Er Raqabi El Mehdi, El Hallaoui Issmaïl and Corréa Ayoub Insa
• Under Review

12. The Petrol Station Replenishment Problem: A Case Study from West Africa

• Authors: Bani Abderrahman, Er Raqabi El Mehdi, El Hallaoui Issmaïl and Corréa Ayoub Insa
• Under Review

13. Design of Electric Vehicles Charging Station Network

• Authors: Er Raqabi El Mehdi
• Master’s Thesis, International University of Japan, 2019

Working Papers

14. A Rolling-Space Branch-and-Price Algorithm for the Multi-Compartment Vehicle Routing Problem with Multiple Time Windows

• Authors: Er Raqabi El Mehdi, Dalmeijer Kevin and Van Hentenryck Pascal

15. Scheduling and Routing in the Flexible Job Shop with Heterogeneous Transbots: A Constraint Programming Approach

• Authors: Arnovi Moinuddin, Er Raqabi El Mehdi and Van Hentenryck Pascal

16. When the LLM becomes the OR Expert: A Framework for Primal Large-Scale Re-optimization

• Authors: Tinghan Ye, Ved Mohan, Er Raqabi El Mehdi and Van Hentenryck Pascal

(*: Equal Contribution)

Grants

Learning Decompositions: A Smart Approach to Large Problems

• Organization: Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Nature et Technologies (FRQNT)
• Role: Principal Investigator
• Amount: $84,000
• Period: 2021-2025

Decomposition Learning: An Intelligent Framework For Large Scale Optimization Problems

• Organization: Institute for Data Valorization (IVADO)
• Role: Principal Investigator
• Amount: $75,000
• Period: 2021-2024

Supervision

Current Ph.D. Students

• Ved Mohan (Advisor: Pascal Van Hentenryck)
• Moinuddin Arnovi (Advisor: Pascal Van Hentenryck)
• Ye Joe (Advisor: Pascal Van Hentenryck)

Former Ph.D. Interns

• Junyang Cai (AI4OPT, Gatech, April 2025)

Former Undergraduate Interns

• Chetan Reddy Bojja (ISyE & AI4OPT, GaTech, March-June 2025)
• Ryan J Rodriguez (ISyE & AI4OPT, GaTech, February-May 2025)