January 2026 ASHRAE ATLANTA CHAPTER MEETING

Topic: An Introduction to Product Optimization

Tuesday, January 13th, 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM

Program Description

Please join the ASHRAE Atlanta Chapter for a technical presentation and lunch on Tuesday, January 13th. When the topic of "HVAC Optimization" comes up, we often think about optimizing a system for a particular customer and their physical space. However, one of the most impactful opportunities for optimization lies within the design of the mechanical units that serve as the core of your HVAC solution.

In this introductory and interactive presentation, Tim Snyder will demystify the basics of mathematical optimization, teach how manufacturers can apply simple yet powerful approaches to improve stock (or custom) unit design, and present cutting edge, complex algorithmic methods of optimization to improve unit performance and cut cost. Accessible to all attendees - whether from engineering, sales, product management, or other backgrounds - you will come away from this talk with the ability to optimize or request optimization of your product (or the offerings/services that include a product) to meet your customer’s needs.

You will learn:

◦ What "mathematical optimization" really means (and what it can do for performance and cost);

◦ How robust mathematical optimization enhances design engineering approaches;

◦ How manufacturing teams can deploy optimization tools into their product lifecycles quickly, and how other stakeholders can ask meaningful questions to discern how well the unit design meets the end customer’s needs;

◦ What the future holds for powerful, algorithmic approaches to stock (and custom) product design optimization.

Speaker

Tim Snyder

Tim Snyder is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, where he earned his BS in Computer Science. He spent over twenty years in software engineering with well-known companies such as Google and Databricks. Having developed an expertise in mathematical foundations for data analysis, Tim developed one of the most accurate COVID morbidity and mortality statistical trackers in the US, incorporated by the CDC into its official model. For the past decade, he has been researching mathematical optimization and data visualization techniques, developing new approaches to be applied to the HVAC industry. He and his business partner and co-researcher Davis Wilson will be presenting on these approaches at the ASHRAE annual conference.