Researchers at the front line
TIME IS MONEY as the saying goes, and no one knows that better than the man who has spent most of his professional life trying to conserve it. Not that he's been against the clock. For Edwin Cheng Tai-chiu, chair professor in Polytechnic University's department of management, has been saving vital minutes for more than 20 years.
'Time is a precious resource,' said Professor Cheng, whose specialist skill is scheduling - the art of doing things efficiently.
The results of his research, which won him a senior reserarch fellowship from the Croucher Foundation in 2001, have been applied both locally and overseas in fields ranging from food production to pharmacology and astrophysics.
The former PolyU vice-president's work reportedly helped a New Zealand food production company achieve a 30 per cent saving in operating costs. 'This was quoted in the literature. I was very excited about it.'
The latest interest has come from a Taiwanese film company trying to find the most cost-effective way of organising stars on movie sets. 'You have talent waiting on the set, but sometimes not required in all scenes. So the problem is how to sequence them so that idle time is minimised. It is one of the scheduling problems we studied and came away with a solution for.
