Geoffrey De Smet
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geoffreydesmet.bsky.social
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
🚀 Our new API for Pickup and Delivery Routing is out! 🚀

It optimizes in-route pickup and delivery of people or packages.

For example:
- Non-emergency medical transport to bring patients to the hospital
- School bus optimization
- Food delivery
- Parcel delivery

app.timefold.ai/models/picku...
Pick-up and Delivery Routing: out-of-the-box PlanningAI by Timefold
Assign pick-up and delivery jobs to drivers, optimizing for increased productivity and reduced travel time.
app.timefold.ai
November 6, 2025 at 4:35 PM
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
October 12, 2025 at 10:24 AM
"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...
Digital Identities, Fraud, and the Future of AI with Veriff & Timefold: The Secure Disclosure
YouTube video by The Secure Disclosure | Cyber, Sake, More.
www.youtube.com
October 10, 2025 at 6:43 AM
"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?"
October 6, 2025 at 11:59 AM
Reposted by Geoffrey De Smet
#Devoxx talk trial run in front of a "live" audience. 😅 If you are at the conference, do say hello when you see me. 😊
October 5, 2025 at 8:12 PM
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
October 3, 2025 at 11:52 AM
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...
Geoffrey De Smet: From a hobby to building a company
YouTube video by Optimization4All
www.youtube.com
September 18, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey De Smet
Today is the day... 🤩☕️🔥 #Java
September 16, 2025 at 9:31 AM
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...
August 25, 2025 at 8:13 AM
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.
August 1, 2025 at 8:27 AM
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...
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 “perfect” plans end up in the…
timefold.ai
July 9, 2025 at 12:40 PM
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...
Vehicle Routing Problems in production: When research meets reality
YouTube video by Timefold
www.youtube.com
June 26, 2025 at 7:24 AM
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.
June 21, 2025 at 1:44 PM
This is what happens if you use floating point numbers (int, double in #Java) for financial data.

Use decimal numbers (BigDecimal in Java) instead.
June 15, 2025 at 10:25 AM
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...
June 6, 2025 at 6:46 AM
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
May 18, 2025 at 7:49 AM
Reposted by Geoffrey De Smet
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. 👍

github.com/TimefoldAI/t...
Release Timefold Solver 1.22.0 · 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...
github.com
April 28, 2025 at 1:27 PM
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
April 21, 2025 at 11:36 AM
Reposted by Geoffrey De Smet
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
April 19, 2025 at 5:02 PM
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?
April 10, 2025 at 9:35 AM
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
Driver costs for the Vehicle Routing Problem
YouTube video by Timefold
www.youtube.com
March 26, 2025 at 6:52 AM
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...
March 25, 2025 at 3:26 PM
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...
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.
timefold.ai
February 10, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey De Smet
Allons-y! 🥖🍷🇫🇷

Looking forward to speaking at DevoxxFR for the first time. It's gonna be an #llm #ai and #java presentation on creating schedules together with my co-speaker @geoffreydesmet.bsky.social 😁

Looking forward to sharing that with you all. 😇
February 5, 2025 at 11:05 AM
One of the most interesting feats of engineering recently was explained Saturday at #Fosdem for project Liliput for #Java OpenJDK:

How to put 25 bits into 2 bits.

How they are circumventing the trade-off between usability and memory usage. 🧵
February 3, 2025 at 8:07 AM