Fernando Tubilla
Milton,MA
Summary
Accomplished professional with over 15 years of expertise in developing production-grade systems for advanced planning and scheduling across warehousing, manufacturing, and logistics sectors. Former Senior Research Scientist at Amazon and Senior Director of Operations Research at Indigo Ag, delivering measurable impact and substantial business value. Owner of a consulting agency recognized for driving innovation and efficiency through AI-driven solutions tailored to diverse business needs, demonstrating a steadfast commitment to excellence. Proven ability to leverage deep industry knowledge to foster growth and optimize operations in dynamic environments.
Overview
18
18
years of professional experience
Work History
Operations Research Consultant
Coordinai
01.2023 - Current
- Enhanced a legacy optimization system for passenger re-accommodation at a major U.S. airline, enabling processing of +1.7M bookings/year by adding support for code-share itineraries and special service requests (SSRs).
- Developed novel, high-performance algorithms for the parallel stack loading and pre-marshalling problems for a client in maritime logistics.
- Led development and deployment of a backhaul optimization solution for a major glass manufacturer, combining custom search heuristics with a mixed-integer programming (MIP) formulation to deliver near optimal solutions in seconds; identified $1.9M+ annual savings in empty miles.
- Co-developed a large-scale MIP production scheduling model for a major lumber manufacturer, generating 7-day hourly schedules in under 10 minutes. Developed a network optimization model (80M decision variables), used by Finance, with an estimated impact of $1M+ annual savings.
- Developed a patent-pending (application filed) fleet-motion coordination system for large-scale autonomous mobile robot (AMR) deployments in sortation and goods-to-picker operations; executed two customer pilots (including a major e-retailer) showing up to 20% fleet-size reduction and ~2% storage-density increase.
- Optimized field service operations for a publicly traded construction company by building queueing/capacity models from service-ticket data to size preventive maintenance capacity; implemented territory optimization to place technicians under multiple workforce scenarios.
- Built statistical pricing models and a production pricing API for an insurance client using historical claims data to reduce risk exposure; the API is in active use for quoting all policies.
Sr. Director Operations Research
Indigo Ag
01.2019 - 01.2023
- Led company-wide optimization initiatives, aligning stakeholders across four business units; partnered with executives to present results, refine requirements, and identify new high-impact opportunities and partnerships.
- Led R&D of a contract optimization product; validated value with prospective customers (estimated $330K annual impact). Built core algorithms for supply–demand matching, rapid freight quoting for grain transactions, and agronomist routing, projecting up to 30% travel-time reduction.
- Managed and mentored a team of data scientists (junior to senior); implemented agile cadence, tooling, and delivery processes in a volatile environment. Delivered initiatives including freight price modeling, backhaul optimization, and matching, and spearheaded an org-wide initiative to refresh the company’s technology principles.
Sr. Research Scientist
Amazon Robotics
01.2012 - 01.2019
- Developed algorithms for inventory storage, load balancing, flow control, and work allocation; improved pallet storage and reduced operator wait time by 30%, and increased pick efficiency by 10% through outbound flow control and optimized work allocation.
- Led research and production development of a real-time labor/throughput planning system for mixed human–robot fulfillment, combining multi-objective linear programming with custom discrete-optimization heuristics; implemented and maintained the Java production system (11K+ lines of code) and partnered with software teams to deploy across multiple fulfillment centers.
- Built analytical tools and mathematical models for the mobile fulfillment system using large-scale discrete-event simulation, optimization, control theory, Markov decision processes, and data mining.
- Communicated results to senior leadership; delivered company-wide lectures on allocation algorithms and served as a plenary speaker at Amazon’s Machine Learning Conference.
- Contributed to hiring (research scientist and intern interview loops) and mentored two interns (optimization/RL) and two junior research scientists.
- Filed two patent applications.
Co-Owner
Restaurante Cuattro, Mexico City
01.2008 - 01.2022
- Helped devise and implement menu changes that increased sales by more than 30%.
- Developed a business intelligence web dashboard (using R Shiny) to analyze POS data and aid business partners in their decision-making.
Co-Founder
Geonecta
01.2010 - 01.2013
- Co-founded an Internet of Things startup that developed a Java-based web platform for aggregating information from sensor devices. The startup was a semi-finalist in multiple business incubators (see Awards).
- Enabled a team of researchers at Harvard University to monitor micro-climates in dormitories and study mobility patterns using the platform (P. Correa et al., Intelligent Environments Workshops, 2013).
- Co-led the development of proprietary sensors for monitoring propane tank levels and a custom vehicle routing engine for efficient propane gas distribution. Conducted pilot studies with potential customers and managed a team of three software engineers (utilizing Java, Vaadin, and Spring).
Research Assistant
Manufacturing Systems Group, MIT
01.2008 - 01.2011
- Developed new control policies for scheduling setup changes in manufacturing systems in real time and subject to random failures and raw material shortages.
- Obtained a novel mathematical proof of the stability of the policies using Lyapunov theory.
- Performed a large-scale simulation experiment to demonstrate the merits of the policies compared to other approaches found in the literature, using a custom-made, discrete-event simulation codebase (Python, Fortran).
Education
Ph.D. - Systems Science (Mech. Eng. Dept.)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA01-2011
Master of Science - Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA01-2007
B.S. - Mechanical Engineering
Universidad Iberoamericana
Mexico City01-2003
Skills
- Operations research, data science, resource allocation and optimization systems, supply chain logistics, warehouse and factory automation, marketplace platforms
Timeline
Operations Research Consultant
Coordinai
01.2023 - Current
Sr. Director Operations Research
Indigo Ag
01.2019 - 01.2023
Sr. Research Scientist
Amazon Robotics
01.2012 - 01.2019
Co-Founder
Geonecta
01.2010 - 01.2013
Co-Owner
Restaurante Cuattro, Mexico City
01.2008 - 01.2022
Research Assistant
Manufacturing Systems Group, MIT
01.2008 - 01.2011
Master of Science - Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.S. - Mechanical Engineering
Universidad Iberoamericana
Ph.D. - Systems Science (Mech. Eng. Dept.)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Publications, Patents, and Talks
- F. Tubilla, Simulating Large Fleets of Autonomous Robots in FlexSim, presented at the FlexSim Summit, June 25-26, 2025.
- F. Tubilla, et. al., Systems for Management of Location-Aware Market Data, U.S. Patent 11,978,072, issued May 7, 2024.
- F. Tubilla, S.B. Gershwin, Dynamic Scheduling in Make-to-Stock Production Systems with Setup Times and Random Breakdowns: Performance Analysis and Improved Policies, International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 60, Issue 10, 2022.
- F. Tubilla, Dynamic Scheduling in Make-to-Stock Systems with Setup Times and Random Breakdowns, INFORMS 2020 Annual Meeting, November 8-13, 2020 (virtual).
- F. Tubilla, Storage totes, U.S. Patent 9,990,001, issued October 17, 2017.
- F. Tubilla, Inventory facility, U.S. Patent 9,558,472, issued January 31, 2017.
- Invited panelist at the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT), Guadalajara, Mexico 2014, on the session The Next Wave in Business: Internet of Things and Wearables. Co-panelists: Vida Ilderem (VP Intel Labs), Steven P. Nelson (Executive Director IoT, Freescale Semiconductor), and Max Tremp (Engineering Director Cisco Mexico).
- F. Tubilla, S.B. Gershwin, Stability of Prioritized Scheduling Policies in Manufacturing Systems with Setup Times, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Vol. 59, Issue 6, 2014.
- F. Tubilla, S.B. Gershwin, Stochastic Stability of a Prioritized Control Policy for Scheduling Failure-Prone Machines with Setups, INCOM12, The 14th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing, May 23-25, 2012, Bucharest, Romania.
- F. Tubilla, S.B. Gershwin, Real-Time Scheduling of Failure-Prone Manufacturing Systems with Setup Times and Costs, EUROXXIV, The 24th Conference on Operational Research, July 11-14, 2010, Lisbon, Portugal.
- F. Tubilla, S.B. Gershwin, The Hedging Zone Policy for Real-Time Scheduling of Sequence-Dependent Setups, INCOM09, The 13th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing, June 3-5, 2009, Moscow, Russia.
- F. Tubilla, S.B. Gershwin, Real-Time Scheduling Policy for Manufacturing Systems with Sequence-Dependent Setups”, SMMSO 2009, The Seventh Conference on Stochastic Models of Manufacturing Systems and Service Operations, 2009, June 6-11, 2009, Lecce, Italy.
- Y.-M. Chiang, S.R. Hall, T.E. Chin, F. Tubilla, G. Baetz, D. Spanaras and K.Y. Song, Electrochemical Actuators Utilizing Solid-State Intercalation Compounds and their Applications to Smart Structures, Book Chapter 3, Plants and Mechanical Motion, DEStech Publications, 2012.
- F. Tubilla, S.R. Hall, K. Song, T.E. Chin, G. Baetz, Y.-M. Chiang, Electrochemically-Actuated Morphing Helicopter Blade, 210th Electrochemical Society Meeting, 2006, Cancun, Mexico.
- Co-inventor, Electrochemical methods, devices, and structures, U.S. Patent 7,923,895.
Skills
- Software Development: Python, Java, C, C++, R, SQL, CUDA, Git, AWS, Rust.
- Operations Research Tools: Gurobi, Xpress, FlexSim, CBC, Python-MIP, AMPL.
- Regular reviewer of manuscripts in the areas of production control, warehouse automation modeling, and scheduling for International Journal of Production Research and American Control Conference. Have reviewed also for Annals of Operations Research and IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing.
Awards
- Semifinalist at the MIT 100K Accelerate contest, which included an award of US $1,000 and startup mentorship (2012).
- Recipient of the Legatum Fellowship (Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship, MIT). This fellowship included a $20,000 stipend and business mentorship (2010).
- Semifinalist at the genera.MX business incubator program. Received an $8,000 seed capital award (summer 2010, Mexico City).
- Invited to the 2009 International Achievement Summit, sponsored by the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation.