Dr. Gunn's research involves the application of operations research methods to production planning, particularly in the natural resource sector. A particular area of expertise is the use of decomposition techniques to solve the very large models that arise in these settings. Current projects include models for coordinating production in cellular manufacturing systems, and methods for the joint optimization of forest harvesting and roadbuilding. Other areas of past interest have included tidal power systems, integrated forest-level harvest scheduling and mill allocation; tactical planning of fishing fleet operations, production planning and operations analysis in coal mining enterprises, planning truck fleet maintenance and scheduling fuel replenishment deliveries at gas stations.

Dr. Gunn spent 1987 to 1988 with the Industrial Engineering Department at the Cape Breton Development Corporation.  This resulted in models for capacity planning, for planning coal production, preparation and customer allocation, for operational planning and control, and a series of stochastic models for evaluating throughput of various materials handling systems. In 1993/94, Dr. Gunn worked with the NS Dept of Natural Resources developing and implementing a number of models for forest modelling and management.

Dr. Gunn's other research interests include stochastic programming, routing and scheduling, control of gueueing processes and inventory control.

Dr. Gunn's research has been supported by operating and equipment grants by NSERC, the PRUF program of the Canadian Forests Services, and the Committee on Atlantic Control. His sabbatical year at the Cape Breton Development Corporation was partially supported by a Senior Industrial Fellowship from NSERC. He has also carried out contract work for various industrial organizations.

Dr. Gunn has taught operations research, systems engineering, computer simulation, engineering economics and production planning and inventory control. He has offered graduate courses in capital investment, capacity expansion planning, nonlinear optimization, decision analysis, stochastic processes and operations research.

Dr. Gunn was President of the Canadian Operational Research Society in 1991/1992. He is a member of the Association of Professional Engineers of Nova Scotia, infORMS, the Mathematical Programming Society and a senior member of the Institute of Industrial Engineers. He has served on several committees of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada . He has over 50 refereed publications and has presented his work at many different international conferences.

KEY WORDS manufacturing, forestry, fishing, coal mining, linear programming, modelling, natural resources, operations research, optimization, production planning, tidal power.