ORMS Today - August 2017

INNOVATIVE EDUCATION: Back-to-school special issue

Best in Class Innovative programs and insight on the present and future of O.R. and analytics education

August 2017

Volume 44 • Number 4 ormstoday.informs.org

• ‘Undoing’ the teaching of analytics • Industry experience, teaching philosophy • MAPD event outlines best practices • The making of an MSBA program • New approach to middle school math • How an O.R. course ‘brings math to life’ • Classroom wargames battle cyber threats • MobiDoc initiative thrives in Tunisia

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Contents August 2017 | Volume 44, No. 4 | ormstoday.informs.org

22 On the Cover Class act Leading educators offer insight, expertise and innovative ideas regarding the present and future of analytics and O.R. education.

Image © goodluz | 123rf.com

Sp ecial iss u e :

Innovative Education 22

‘Undoing’ the teaching of analytics

26

Industry experience, teaching philosophy

30

MAPD: analytics education best practices

36

The making of an MSBA program

By Peter C. Bell Analytics challenges can destroy mental models that decisionmakers have used historically in decision-making.

de partm e nt s

6 8 10 12 14 16 18 62 64

Inside Story President’s Desk Forum Viewpoint INFORMS in the News PuzzlOR Roundtable Profile Classifieds ORacle

By S. Raghu Raghavan Teaching of OR/MS Practice Award-winning professor’s advice: be yourself, be enthusiastic, be prepared.

By Melissa R. Bowers Inaugural INFORMS Meeting of Analytics Program Directors meets the needs of fast-growing academic interest area.

2 | ORMS Today

By Sanjay Saigal Industry demand, diverse class drive UC Davis Master of Science in Business Analytics program, set for launch this fall.

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August 2017

18 ormstoday.informs.org

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August 2017 | Volume 44, No. 4 | ormstoday.informs.org

40 42 46 50

INFORMS Board of Directors

From percentages to algebra

By Kenneth Chelst Middle school mathematics: New style of teaching based on O.R. and scenario-based learning.

O.R. course ‘brings math to life’

By Thad Wilhelm High school students see mathematics as a tool for making decisions and solving meaningful problems.

Wargames illuminate cyber threat

By Olivia Kay Hernandez, Theodore T. Allen and Douglas A. Samuelson Classroom games provide an analytic, educational toolset to analyze the effects of proposed courses of action.

President-Elect Nicholas Hall, Ohio State University

Past President Edward H. Kaplan, Yale University

Secretary Pinar Keskinocak, Georgia Tech

Treasurer Michael Fu, University of Maryland

Vice President-Publications Jonathan F. Bard, University of Texas at Austin

Vice President- Russell Barton, Sections and Societies Pennsylvania State University

Vice President- Marco Luebbecke, Information Technology RWTH Aachen University

Vice President- Jonathan Owen, CAP, General Motors Practice Activities Vice President- Grace Lin, Asia University International Activities

Vice President-Membership Susan E. Martonosi,

Professional Recognition Harvey Mudd College

Vice President-Education Jill Hardin Wilson, Northwestern University

MobiDoc initiative in Tunisia

By Atidel B. Hadj-Alouane A mechanism for doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows to conduct research in an industrial or service company.

55 Preview: Annual Meeting

President Brian Denton, University of Michigan

Vice President-Meetings Ronald G. Askin, Arizona State University

Vice President-Marketing, Laura Albert, Communications and Outreach University of Wisconsin-Madison Vice President-Chapters/Fora Michael Johnson, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Editors of Other INFORMS Publications

Decision Analysis Rakesh K. Sarin, University of California, Los Angeles

news

Editor’s Cut Anne G. Robinson, Verizon

Information Systems Research Alok Gupta, University of Minnesota I NFORMS Journal on Computing David Woodruff, University of California, Davis

55

INFORMS Transactions Jeroen Belien, KU Leuven on Education

Interfaces Michael F. Gorman, University of Dayton

Management Science Teck-Hua Ho, National University of Singapore

Manufacturing & Service Christopher S. Tang, Operations Management University of California, Los Angeles

56 Winter Simulation Conference

Marketing Science K. Sudhir, Yale University

Mathematics of Operations J. G. “Jim” Dai, Cornell University Research

57 New journal:

Stochastic Systems

Operations Research Stefanos Zenios, Stanford University

Organization Science Gautam Ahuja, University of Michigan

8-59 President-elect position 5 statements 60 In Memoriam: Harvey M. Wagner 61 Director of Education, Industry Outreach

Strategy Science Daniel A. Levinthal, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Transportation Science Martin Savelsbergh, Georgia Institute of Technology

Tutorials in Operations J. Cole Smith, Clemson University Research

INFORMS Office • Phone: 1-800-4INFORMS

Executive Director Melissa Moore

Headquarters

61 Meetings

4 | ORMS Today

Service Science Paul P. Maglio, University of California, Merced

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August 2017

INFORMS (Maryland) 5521 Research Park Dr., Suite 200 Catonsville, MD 21228 USA Tel.: 443.757.3500 Fax: 443.757.3515 E-mail: informs@informs.org

ormstoday.informs.org

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Inside Story

Peter Horner, editor

peter.horner@mail.informs.org

OR/MS Today Advertising and Editorial Office

Where the teaching is

Send all advertising submissions for OR/MS Today to: Lionheart Publishing Inc. 1635 Old​41 Hwy, Suite 112-361, Kennesaw, GA 30152​USA Tel.: 888.303.5639 • Fax: 770.432.6969

President John Llewellyn, ext. 209 john.llewellyn@mail.informs.org

Willie Sutton, the infamous and accomplished bank robber, when asked by a reporter why he robbed banks, allegedly and famously replied: “Because that’s where the money is.”

According to Wikipedia, the quote evolved into “Sutton’s Law,” which is “often invoked to medical students as a metaphor for focusing a workup on the most likely diagnosis, rather than wasting time and money investigating every conceivable possibility.”

Now that sounds a little like practical back-of-the-envelope optimization, operations research and analytics. Who knew Willie knew?

A couple of years ago in this space and on this month’s topic, I found myself in Willie Sutton’s shoes. Explaining why I always invite Peter Bell to contribute an article to our annual special issue on innovative education, I indicated that I have questions about the state of O.R. and analytics education and where it might be headed in the future, and Peter B., a professor at the Ivey School of Business at Western University in Ontario, Canada, has insightful answers.

This year was no exception. I asked, and Peter answered. Turns out that Professor Bell’s award-winning teaching of MBA and EMBA students has continued to evolve along with the analytics environment, influenced in part by a new book by Michael Lewis (he of “Moneyball” fame) titled “The Undoing Project.” When Peter Bell talks, I listen. Check out what he has to say on page 22.

S p e a k i n g o f awa r d - w i n n i n g educators, I make a point of inviting the most recent recipient of the INFORMS Pr ize for the Teaching of OR/MS Practice to share their insights, experience and advice in this annual special issue.

The 2016 recipient, S. Raghu Raghaven

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of the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, offers this advice: be yourself, be enthusiastic, be prepared. Says Professor Raghaven, who has prospered in both the real world and academia, “Teaching the joys of OR/MS tools and techniques and their wide applicability in practice is what excites me every day, and something I consciously chose when I decided to give up industry for academia.” For more, see page 26.

As they say on late-night TV commercials, but wait, there’s more. Much more.

This issue also includes a report on the inaugural INFORMS Meeting of Analytics Program Directors (MAPD) headed by Melissa R. Bowers (page 30), the making of an MSBA program at UC Davis by Sanjay Saigal (page 36), an update from Kenneth Chelst on his continuing efforts to bring operations research-or iented teaching to high school and in this case middle school students (page 40) and the story of high school teacher Thad Wilhelm who brings math to life for his students who now see math as a a tool for making decisions and solving meaningful problems (page 42).

The innovative education features conclude with a look at wargaming and how classroom games provide an analytic, educational toolset to analyze the effects of proposed courses of action in response to cyber threats (page 46), as well as a MobicDoc initiative in Tunisia that provides a win-win situation for doctoral and post-doctoral students and the industrial and service companies they work with (page 50).

Tur ns out lear ning is a lifelong endeavor, whether you’re a student or a teacher. Who knew … besides Willie? ORMS

Editor Peter R. Horner peter.horner@mail.informs.org Tel.: 770.587.3172

Assistant Editor Donna Brooks

Contributing writers/editors Douglas Samuelson, John Toczek

Art Director Alan Brubaker, ext. 218 alan.brubaker@mail.informs.org

Online Projects Manager Patton McGinley, ext. 214 patton.mcginley@mail.informs.org

Assistant Online Projects Manager Leslie Proctor, ext. 228 leslie.proctor@mail.informs.org

Advertising Sales Managers Sharon Baker sharon.baker@mail.informs.org Tel.: 813-852-9942

Reprints Kelly Millwood, ext. 215 kelly.millwood@mail.informs.org

OR/MS Today Committee James Cochran, chairman

INFORMS Online http://www.informs.org

Lionheart Publishing Online http://www.orms-today.org OR/MS Today (ISSN 1085-1038) is published bimonthly by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). Canada Post International Publications Mail (Canadian Distribution) Sales Agreement No. 1220047.

Deadlines for contributions: Manuscripts and news items should arrive no later than six weeks prior to the first day of the month of publication. Address correspondence to: Editor, OR/MS Today, 1635 Old​ 41 Hwy, Suite 112-361, Kennesaw, GA 30152​. The opinions expressed in OR/MS Today are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of INFORMS, its officers, Lionheart Publishing Inc. or the editorial staff of OR/MS Today. Membership subscriptions for OR/MS Today are included in annual dues. INFORMS offers non-member subscriptions to institutions, the rate is $62 USA, $79 Canada & Mexico and $85 all other countries. Single copies can be purchased for $10.50 plus postage. Periodicals postage paid at Catonsville, MD, and additional mailing offices. Printed in the United States of America. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to OR/MS Today, INFORMS-Maryland Office, 5521 Research Park Dr., Suite 200, Catonsville, MD 21228. OR/MS Today copyright ©2017 by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.

All rights reserved.

ormstoday.informs.org

What’s Your StORy? Ahmet Kuyumcu Co-Founder and CEO, Prorize LLC INFORMS member since 1990 What prompted you to enter this field? Why? Since my youth, I have never been satisfied with the status quo. I’ve always wanted to do things better. I appreciate and crave variety. I tend to seek analytical solutions to problems. It was love at first sight when I took an introductory class in operations research (O.R.) as an undergraduate at Istanbul Technical University in Turkey.

How have you seen the O.R. field change since you first entered it?

The O.R. field is growing in line with the growth of data and technology. Data has grown in variety, volume, velocity, and veracity. Technology has advanced with more computing power and better software. The O.R. field is at the intersection of data and technology, providing value and meaning to data, and is positioned to transform the world in ways we’ve never imagined.

Tell us about your experience in the Edelman competition. How has winning the Edelman Award affected your career?

I have dreamed of winning the Edelman Award for many years, but never had the opportunity to compete for it. When I finally decided to submit an abstract, I learned it was only three hours before the deadline!

Being named a finalist was a great honor, and winning the award from among an outstanding group of finalists was inexplicably humbling and gratifying. My Edelman experience taught me a couple of key lessons: First, give yourself a tight deadline for any task; e.g., three hours! Second, O.R. entrepreneurs should not be discouraged if their start-up company is small. We started the Holiday Retirement project that won the Edelman award as a two-man shop. In fact, smaller firms are more agile, flexible, and customer-centric. These qualities are most valuable to large corporations when it comes to a transformational project like pricing.

The Edelman Award created a substantial pipeline and interest for Prorize products and services. Many firms want to know how we set prices optimally, not only for senior living and self-storage firms, but other industries, as well. This is an exciting time for the Prorize team.

More questions for Ahmet?

Ask him in the Open Forum on INFORMS Connect!

http://connect.informs.org

President’s Desk

Brian Denton

INFORMS President president@informs.org

Publications: The good, the bad and the ugly In this article, I will discuss some of what I believe are the positive and negative aspects of publishing in our field. Much of the discussion focuses on INFORMS journals but many themes apply equally well to other journals.

My goal is to point out where our community is doing well and where we have room for improvement. Unlike one of my favorite movies that bears the name of this article, I’ll start with the “ugly” and work toward the “good.”

The Ugly. A recent article in The Guardian titled “Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?” recently caught the attention of many with provocative statements such as the following:“In 2010, Elsevier’s scientific publishing arm reported profits of £724m on just over £2bn in revenue. It was a 36 percent margin – higher than Apple, Google or Amazon posted that year.”

The article goes on to say that many people find the business model of “forprofit” publishers to be “puzzling.” After all, they profit by selling the creative

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The lengthy publication process delays the time to the dissemination of results, hinders promotion and tenure cases for junior faculty, and can deter people from entering our field.

work of other s, often to the very institutions where the authors work.

Unfortunately, statements l i ke t h i s c a s t a d a r k shadow over all publishers, including not-for-profit society publishers such as INFORMS, that have a much different mandate and use revenues to create value for their members.

The Bad. Unfortunately, there is never any shortage of concerns about the publication process in our field.

The time from submission to publication is often measured in years. Multiple revisions are the standard for our top journals, sometimes leading to third or fourth round rejections. This lengthy process delays the time to the dissemination of results, hinders promotion and tenure cases for junior faculty, and can deter people from entering our field. Moreover, these decisions are made based on feedback from a handful of referees whose opinions are subjective and sometimes unnecessarily critical. All of these things hurt authors.

So, why do we do it?

The answers are not so simple. Chris Tang, editor in chief of the INFORMS journal M&SOM, recently opened up a highly constructive dialogue on his Editor’s blog about this issue [1]. In one of his postings, Chris quotes an article by Matthew Spiegel who argues, “No published article is good

enough to publish” [2]. This argument is supported by a controversial study (Peters and Ceci, [3]), in which the authors resubmitted articles previously published in top psychology journals, and found that eight of the nine articles that underwent review were rejected. Could this happen in our field?

The Good. Our journals help to cultivate research, brand our field, promote access to new ideas and archive published discover ies for future generations. For many of our members, publication of research in archival journals is the most important and recognized way to disseminate new discover ies. When it comes to INFORMS journals, there is much to celebrate. Authors have a rich collection of highly cited journals where they can submit their work, including journals for the general audience, such as Operations Research or Management Science, and focused topic journals, like the new INFORMS Journal on Optimization and INFORMS’ open access journal, Stochastic Systems. In total, INFORMS has 16 peer-reviewed journals, addressing the full spectrum of operations research methodologies and applications.

Five of these journals are featured on the Financial Times list of 50 top academic journals [4]. Of the 78 recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economics, 36 percent ormstoday.informs.org

Revenues from publications serve to cover the cost of activities that benefit all of our members such as the cost of service to subdivisions, marketing our field and … many others.

(28) have published in INFORMS journals [5].

Revenues from publications serve to cover the cost of activities that benefit all of our members such as the cost of service to subdivisions, marketing of our field and our members’ accomplishments, continuing education offerings, analytics certification efforts and many others.

In my view, the good far outweighs the bad, but I think there is a lot we can do to improve the peer review process. I think the biggest opportunities

pertain to the editor ial culture in our field. Editors in chief hold ultimate responsibility, but a lot rests with reviewers and editorial board member s. Reviewer s often see themselves as gatekeepers whose role is to decide which papers are “good enough,” but this ignores an equally important role they can play as “coaches” on behalf of authors. Another problem is that reviewers often cannot recognize their own personal biases. This is unavoidable because we are all influenced by our personal experiences, but it can be mitigated by entering into a review with an awareness that such bias exists and endeavoring to provide objective feedback. Associate editors and department editors have the important charge of working on behalf of the editor in chief, but they

REFERENCES 1. https://msomsociety.org/author/christangucla/ 2. Spiegel, M., 2012, “Reviewing Less – Progressing More,” Review of Financial Studies, Vol. 25, No. 5, pp. 1,331-1,338.

3. Peters, D.P. and S. J. Ceci, 1982, “Peer Review Practices of Psychology Journals: The Fate of Published Articles Submitted Again,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Vol.5, pp. 187-195.

4. https://www.ft.com/content/3405a512-5cbb-11e18f1f-00144feabdc0?mhq5j=e2 5. http://pubsonline.informs.org/authorportal/ recognizing-excellence

must also serve authors when reviewers disagree by thoroughly evaluating the reviews and the manuscript to advise authors on how to proceed.

There is much more to say about publications than space allows. I invite you to weigh in with your own thoughts and constructive ideas about how to improve the review process, by talking to your colleagues, contacting journal editors or posting comments on INFORMS Connect. ORMS

Connecting with the right audience isn’t rocket science.

Exhibit & SPonsor at the world’s largest Operations Research & Analytics Conference For additional details, contact Olivia Schmitz at Olivia.Schmitz@informs.org or visit: http://meetings.informs.org/houston2017 Houston, Texas | October 22-25, 2017

August 2017

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Forum

By Mark Eisner

Your go-to site for O.R. history I f yo u h ave n o t v i s i t e d t h e INFORMS O.R. History website in recent months, this is the time to check it out. The recent upgrade of the site has much new content that has been added since our last description in the October 2015 issue of OR/MS Today.

O ve r t h e l a s t f ew ye a r s , t h e History and Traditions Committee of INFORMS has focused its efforts on developing the O.R. History website as a resource to anyone who has interest in understanding and preserving the histor y of our profession. We first introduced the site and its contents in the article entitled “A guided tour of the INFORMS history website,” cited above [1].

In its recent upg rade, the site displays a ver itable treasure trove of resources of the history of O.R., organized into several sections that focus on people, institutions, O.R. methodologies, application areas and archives. In the process, the website has become easier to navigate, more attractive and more readable on your device of choice (computer screens, smartphones or tablets). In short, while the basic destinations are still all there, the site is looking better than ever.

The direct link to history’s new home is informs.org/Explore/History-

of-O.R.-Excellence. Or go to informs. org, click on the menu at the upper r ight, then on Explore O.R. and Analytics, and then on In This Section.

Either way, you will gain access to a long page titled “A History of O. R. Excellence” that offers an overview of the many facets of the website: • nearly 250 biographical profiles. (If your profile appears there and you have changes to propose, contact history@informs.org); • the Miser-Har r is P re s i d e n t i a l Po r t r a i t Gallery, covering presidents of ORSA, TIMS and INFORMS; • oral histories, including links and citations for nearly 100 inter views found elsewhere in addition to those in INFORMS format, which divide the interview into chapters and include searchable synchronized transcripts. These interviews offer many f ascinating insights; • links and citations for personal memoirs by nearly 50 individuals;

• links and citations for about 30 archived collections of personal papers in libraries in the United States and the United Kingdom. (Have you thought about the disposition of your personal papers?); and • pages on the history of academic and non-academic institutions that have played a role in the history of O.R., and pages on the history of O.R. application areas and methodologies. The institutions’ contributions are captured in short essays (1,500-2,000 words or more), examples of which appear in

The History and Traditions Committee has focused its efforts on creating a resource for anyone who has interest in understanding and preserving the history of our profession.

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ormstoday.informs.org

Our pioneering generation is all but gone, and we run the risk of losing valuable material, memories and documents that illuminate the chronicle of our field. the pages for the University of Texas, Cornell and Chemical and Petroleum.

Each page includes citations and links to documents; images and videos; and other materials of interest.

Much new content has been added in the last two years, especially in featuring key contributors to O.R. In particular, the number of video interviews in the INFORMS format in the oral history section is approaching 30. Recent additions include interviews with Egon Balas, Dick Larson, George Nemhauser,

Bill Pierskalla and Stephen Pollack. New mater ials are continually being discovered or created and added to all segments of the site.

There is much more work to be done, and you can help: Whether you and your professional interests are directly represented on the site or you are just interested in the history of O.R., you can provide us with new leads or new materials to enrich the site. We welcome new additions to, or augmentations of, existing biographical profiles, memoirs or archival materials. Fleshing out the pages devoted to institutions, methodologies and applications areas is another area in which we need help. If you can help, or know of others who can join the effort, please contact history@informs.org.

Operations research is a relatively young profession and field of research,

REFERENCE 1. https://www.informs.org/ORMS-Today/PublicArticles/October-Volume-42-Number-5/Aguided-tour-of-the-INFORMS-history-website

but our pioneer ing generation is all but gone, and we run the risk of losing valuable mater ial, memor ies and documents that illuminate the chronicle of our field. The INFORMS History and Traditions Committee is committed to assembling its online website to present the histor ical trajectory of our field in an accessible and organized fashion.Visit the site and let us know what you think of it and how it can be enriched. ORMS Mark Eisner (me35@cornell.edu) is chair of the INFORMS History and Traditions Committee. He has all but retired from Cornell’s School of Operations Research and Information Engineering, where he had served as senior lecturer and communications associate following a career at Exxon and in military O.R.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS 2018

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS IS TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017 Are you the best in OR/MS/Analytics education?

The UPS George D. Smith Prize is created in the spirit of strengthening ties between industry and the schools of higher education that graduate young practitioners of operations research. INFORMS, with the help of The Practice Section, will award the prize to an academic department or program for the effective and innovative preparation of students to be good practitioners of operations research, management science, or analytics.

The prize will include a trophy and $10,000 award. The UPS George D. Smith Prize will be announced at the 2018 Edelman Gala at the INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research, in Baltimore, MD.

For more information, questions can be sent to Rina Schneur, 2018 Smith Prize Chair at rinarsg@gmail.com.

www.informs.org/smithprize

2017 UPS Smith Prize Winners United States Air Force Academy, Operations Research Program

ing ties hen t g en str

ups george d smith prize August 2017

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ORMS Today

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Viewpoint

By Steven S. Harrod

Expand your career horizons with a position abroad It’s job market season again. Are you sticking your toe in the water? Looking for a new challenge? A change of weather? Why not make a big splash and consider a position beyond your country’s borders? Of course, for decades institutions in English-speaking nations have filled their ranks with recruits from around the world, but rarely does an academic from an English-speaking nation make the move abroad.

Four years ago I found myself, an American, interviewing with a foreign university, and the interviewer posed the most provocative question: “Why would you want to take a position where you work twice as hard for half the pay?” I had to confess that I did not know the answer to the interviewer’s question, because I did not know the details about the job to which I was applying. In retrospect, I realize now that the interviewer was just as guilty of not knowing anything about the academic work environment in the United States as I was about their university.

I did not let that encounter dissuade me. In 2014, I moved from the University of Dayton in Ohio to the Technical University of Denmark in suburban Copenhagen. It has been an enriching, life-changing experience.

It was the most significant decision in my life since leaving home for college.

Why wouldn’t it be? Like many of my colleagues, I chose an academic life for the freedom to learn and explore, for the adventure of “going where no man has gone before,” and, like many of you, my research can at times be very narrow and specialized. My move to Denmark has offered me research opportunities that fundamentally do not exist in the United States and 12 | ORMS Today

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and copays, are included (or heavily subsidized) in the taxes you pay in many countries. Another problem is the rate of exchange. When valued as U.S. dollars, my salary lost 20 percent of its value over two years due to currency value alone! But its purchasing power in my community did not change.

Focus on qualitative measures when

It is very easy to become fixated on the differences between your home and destination countries, and find reasons not to make the move. Don’t do that.

given me a whole new fresh outlook on life. Why wouldn’t you consider expanding your research to a different point of view and set of cultural values?

English has long been the standard language of business and research.

More and more universities in non-English nations are offering education programs in English, and these universities are increasingly open to hiring faculty and researchers from abroad.

Further, many of the host nations are improving their services to ease the transition for professional recruits from abroad. But the biggest obstacles to making a move abroad are often fear, and the fact that the systems are so different it is hard to make a direct comparison.

Do’s and Don’ts It is very easy to become fixated on the differences between your home and destination countries, and find reasons not to make the move. Don’t do that. There are more similarities between countries, especially in this connected, digital world, than you may fully appreciate. There is very little difference between McDonald’s in Chicago and McDonald’s in Copenhagen, and if Walmart is your passion, you’ll find something similar to that everywhere you go too.

I t ’s i m p o r t a n t n o t t o f o c u s too much on specific numer ical comparisons, like salary. Tax structures and benefits can var y enor mously from one country to another. Benefits that you may pay for separately today, such as child care, health insurance

evaluating job offers. Do colleagues in similar positions appear happy? Do they have nice homes? Do they take nice vacations to interesting places? Are they productive in their research? Do they attend interesting conferences?

Of course, you still would like to know some hard facts about your foreign job offer, but it can be difficult to find all the information. Very often your colleagues and human resources staff “don’t know what you don’t know.” They can also be guilty of just assuming you know things, or not realizing that some local practice is different from your home country. It took us a long time to fully understand the employment benefits in Denmark, because they are standard across the whole countr y, and there are no human resources information packages that are typical in the United States.

Many of my benefits are also vested in the employee union I belong to, so information about those benefits is found with the union representative, n o t w i t h t h e u n ive r s i t y h u m a n resources department.

This information gap extends also to the work environment and practices and procedures for research and education, so be careful to ask questions often and early.

For example, the course delivery process is completely different in Denmark than

Be aware that the hiring process can differ significantly in other countries. Some practices that are discouraged or flat out illegal in the United States may be the norm in other countries.

nent employment status.

If you are starting a family, many countries also have valuable benefits for new parents. In Denmark, new parents are entitled to a year of leave with pay, which can either be taken entirely by the mother or divided between mother and f ather. Per manent employment is also the starting point for citizenship, and increasingly governments are permitting dual citizenship.

Steven Harrod at the Technical University of Denmark.

in the United States. Oral final exams, which form the majority of the course grade, are the norm. However, no one thought to tell me, until 24 hours before my first exam, that we assess the exam immediately in the five minutes after the student presentation, and then announce the course grade to the student before he or she leaves! The management structure may also surprise you. In my institution, management of education is a completely separate, parallel structure to the management of the departments and research, and many education rules and policies are actually set by Danish law.

Try to learn as much as you can about citizen benefits when evaluating a job offer. You may be faced with the choice of whether to be classified as “contract” or “permanent.” A time limited or contract classification may save you some taxes and simplify your departure from the country in the future, but it may also prohibit you from receiving some benefits, and if you really like your new job, it may make staying in the country more difficult later. In many countries, your children qualify for free education either immediately or within a few years of arrival, and this can be an enormous financial benefit, but this only applies to perma-

Learn the Language If you take a job abroad, I strongly recommend that you start learning the language of your new home immediately, and make it a priority in your first year of employment. English is very common in most metropolitan areas, and your workgroup at the university will most likely conduct business in English, but this also leads to a dangerous procrastination with respect to learning your new home’s language.

After a few years, it can become embarrassing to have large meetings in English only because you are attending.

It is also important to be sensitive to your use of language in the classroom. I am very conscious when lecturing to repeat important points often and with alternate phrasing, because almost always I am the only native English speaker in the room. Be cautious; just because someone is speaking English to you in a familiar accent does not mean that they really understand you. My wife came home from the doctor one day very disappointed. She had requested a drug that she previously had been prescribed in America, and the doctor said, “We don’t have that drug in Denmark.” Two months later, she went back to the doctor in pain, and the doctor said, “Take this drug.” Huge misunderstanding! They did not have that drug in Denmark, but they did have other drugs in Denmark.

Be aware that the hiring process can differ significantly in other countries.

Some practices that are discouraged or flat out illegal in the United States

may be the norm in other countries.

Examples of this include putting one’s photo, marital status and age on a CV. The selection process can also be surprising. In Denmark, the selection process has two steps. In the first step, candidates are assessed for minimum qualifications by a committee of external judges. Then two to three of the top candidates that pass this evaluation are assessed in a more familiar onsite research presentation and interview of a day’s length. The United Kingdom has the strangest selection process I have ever experienced. As many as six candidates are invited for onsite interviews on the same day. They may all be invited to dinner together the night before (which I find very uncomfortable). The interviews will then consist of a research presentation and perhaps a half-hour panel interview. The selection will often be made immediately afterward, and candidates often know their status on the flight home.

I have to admit I had quite a euphoric rush when I received my job offer by email as I entered my taxi to the Copenhagen airport. It won’t be long before life in your new country seems perfectly normal, and you are complaining about the traffic just like you did back home. But you will feel distinctly different, taller than you were before, with a completely different perspective on your research and on your global neighbors.

It is a feeling of accomplishment that I warmly recommend. So, as you look into the job market this season, why not look a little further? ORMS Steven S. Harrod (stehar@dtu.dk) is an associate professor at the Technical University of Denmark.

August 2017

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INFORMS in the News

Compiled by Ashley Kilgore

When women clash, CAP, ethics, branding, pro bono work & more So much for girl power: Women more likely to clash with female co-workers than with men According to new research in the INFORMS journal Organization Science, women are more likely to clash with other women at work than they are with male colleagues. While women and men were equally likely to have a “difficult” relationship with a colleague, women were more likely to cite a female co-worker as the problem. However, women who had female friends within their office were less likely to have an issue with other female colleagues.

- Daily Mail, July 17

The cure for anxious healthcare investors Sridhar Tayur, INFORMS member and professor at Car neg ie Mellon University, weighs in on the current uncertainty hanging over the U.S. healthcare sector.

- U.S. News, July 3

transformative role it has played since the smart phone boom began a decade ago.

- The Conversation, June 27

Ethics, not greed, boost profits, and analytics can help Michael Ar mstrong, INFORMS member and professor at Brock University, shares the negative impact of greed and unethical behavior on industry, from banking to property development, and how analytics can be used to help, not harm, customers.

- The Conversation, June 27

Look out for surprising consequences of influencer marketing that could hurt your brand A n d rew S t e p h e n , I N F O R M S member and professor at the University of Oxford, discusses a recent study in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science that explores the unexpected spillover effects of seeded marketing campaigns.

- Forbes, June 25

CAP ranked among the top data certifications As more and more organizations are relying on data and analytics, the demand for big data skills and certifications among analytics professionals is also increasing. CIO created a guide to the most sought after big data certifications, including the INFORMS Certified Analytics Professional (CAP®) credential.

- CIO, June 29

Moral hazard encourages consumers to choose more expensive treatment options INFORMS member and University of Toronto professor, Nitin Mehta, discusses a new study he co-authored in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science that investigates the increase in healthcare costs associated with chronic disease in the context of consumers enrolled in employer sponsored insurance plans.

- MedicalResearch.com, June 24

Understanding the real innovation behind the iPhone K a l l e Ly y t i n e n , I N F O R M S member and professor at Case Western Reserve University, takes a look back at the innovation of the iPhone and the 14 | ORMS Today

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August 2017

Students tackle hunger in their community with Pro Bono Analytics Members of the INFORMS student chapter at the University at Buffalo with

the State University of New York have taken inspiration from the INFORMS Pro Bono Analytics prog ram and launched their own efforts to positively impact their community.

- UBNow, June 19

Hey CEOs, here’s one thing you need to do to get a raise Here’s a tip for all you CEOs who want to add a third tennis court to your Hamptons pad: Get a guest spot on CNBC. That’s according to a new study in the INFORMS journal Organization Science, which found that bosses who appear on the business-obsessed TV network tend to see a boost in their salaries.

- Fast Company, June 13

Aiming too high? Stretch goals can hurt your business Setting overly ambitious goals doesn’t have the positive outcome m a ny o r g a n i z a t i o n s a re s t r iv i n g for, new research finds. A study recently published in the INFORMS journal Organization Science revealed t h a t r a t h e r t h a n b o o s t i n g d r ive a n d i n n ova t i o n a n d i m p rov i n g organizational perfor mance, stretch goals more often under mine a company’s performance.

- Business News Daily, June 13

Largest senior living community following lead of Edelman Award winner Holiday Retirement The country’s largest senior living operator, Brookdale, is following in the footsteps of the country’s largest independent living operator, Holiday Retirement, by rolling out a new pr icing model that can tailor rent levels to individual communities and units within them. It’s the same pricing system for which Holiday Retirement and Prorize received the 2017 Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Operations Research and the Management Sciences in April from INFORMS. ORMS - McKnight’s Senior Living, June 12 For links to all the articles mentioned above, visit http://bit.ly/2vbDls3.

ormstoday.informs.org

GREAT STORIES CREATE LASTING IMPRESSIONS...

YOURS SHOULD TOO.

Learn how to become a compelling data storyteller.

Register today for ESSENTIAL PRACTICE SKILLS FOR HIGH-IMPACT ANALYTICS PROJECTS AMA Washington, DC Area Executive Conference Center 2345 Crystal Drive, 2nd floor Arlington, Virginia 22202 September 26–27, 2017 8:30am-4:30pm

Register at www.informs.org/continuinged

PuzzlOR

John Toczek

puzzlor@gmail.com

Unlock the decoded message The accompanying message is encrypted with a simple substitution cypher (one letter replaced with another). To make this puzzle more challenging, all punctuation has been removed.

As a hint, the following words are in the unencrypted message: PUZZLOR, ANALYTICS and INFORMS. Question: What does the unencrypted message say?

Send your answer to puzzlor@gmail.com

by Oct. 15.The winner, chosen randomly from correct answers, will receive a $25 Amazon Gift Card. Past questions and answers can be found at puzzlor.com. ORMS John Toczek is the senior manager of analytics at NRG in Philadelphia. He earned his BSc. in chemical engineering at Drexel University (1996) and his MSc. in operations research from Virginia Commonwealth University (2005).

DKFFQHXAQBUTKTKUGHJNMDHPAQBDUCKO TUOEKGMDKOQGKVHMDAQBTPBSKTHQTUJU FAMHOPPEHFFPHVUJMKGMQMDUJEAQBXQTT KUGHJNMDKSBYYFQTXQTMDKPKSUPMMKJA KUTPUJGFKMAQBEJQVMDUMMDHPVHFFRKM DKFUPMSBYYFKMDHPDUPRKKJUVQJGKTXBF QSSQTMBJHMAXQTIKMQOQJMTHRBMKMQMD KHJXQTIPOQIIBJHMAUJGIKKMIUJAJKVSKQS FKRBMHMPMHIKMQOFQPKMDHPODUSMKTUJ GIQCKQJMQJKVQSSQTMBJHMHKPMDUJEAQB

The final PuzzlOR: What does it say?

informs career fair The INFORMS CAREER CENTER offers employers expanded opportunities to connect to qualified O.R. & analytics professionals. INFORMS offers a complete line of services to be used alone or in conjunction with the Career Fair at the 2017 Annual Meeting, giving job seekers and employers a convenient venue to connect. The Career Fair is free to INFORMS attendees.

EMPLOYERS PARTICIPATING IN THE CAREER FAIR ACTIVITIES AT THE 2017 ANNUAL MEETING WILL BE ABLE TO: • Provide their recruitment materials in a fun and energetic Career Fair setting • Schedule their own on-site interviews at reserved tables or interview booths • Promote their organization and meet highly-qualified, diverse candidates FOR CAREER FAIR REGISTRATION & INFORMATION:

http://meetings.informs.org/houston2017

16 | ORMS Today

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August 2017

ormstoday.informs.org

What’s Your StORy? Lauren Steimle PhD Candidate in Industrial & Operations Engineering University of Michigan INFORMS member since 2014 What prompted you to enter this field? Why? My first taste of operations research came in a high school computer science class when I had to write code to simulate the flow of cars through a hand car wash. My teacher gave us the challenge of designing this simulated car wash to make it run more efficiently. After that project, I kept noticing examples of systems that could be improved using the kind of analysis that I did in my computer science class. It wasn’t until college that I realized there was a whole field dedicated to solving these kinds of decision-making problems. While the O.R. classes that I took were great, it was undergraduate research that really pushed me to pursue a career in this field. For my undergraduate research project, we investigated how to use optimization for scheduling electricity usage in a smart grid to better balance the supply and demand of energy. Further, we analyzed incentives that would encourage consumers to follow the optimized schedule. This project was an exciting way to use O.R. to work on a problem of societal importance. This combination of optimization and the potential for positive impact on society convinced me that this was the field for me.

If we were sitting here a year from now celebrating what a great year it's been for you, what would we be celebrating?

I hope we are celebrating an extremely productive year of research and that my upcoming presentations and publications have influenced both operations researchers and clinicians. Also, I am planning to teach an introductory course on operations modeling in the fall, so I hope we are celebrating a successful course that has inspired many students to pursue O.R. as their future career.

If you could choose anyone, who would you pick as your mentor?

I consider myself extremely lucky in terms of mentors. My undergraduate research advisor, Dr. Arye Nehorai, was the one who first encouraged me to consider pursuing a PhD and was so supportive throughout my undergraduate career and beyond. In graduate school, I’ve had the incredible opportunity of working with Dr. Brian Denton who is a fantastic mentor both in terms of research and professional development. Their guidance has been invaluable to me.

More questions for Lauren?

Ask her in the Open Forum on INFORMS Connect!

http://connect.informs.org

Roundtable Profile

Air Liquide’s Delaware Research and Technology Center in the United States.

Photo credit: Don Pearse Photographers, Inc.

Air Liquide Multinational company’s Computational and Data Science R&D team supports an extensive, varied, dynamic research portfolio.

By Jeffrey E. Arbogast and Athanasios Kontopoulos

18 | ORMS Today

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August 2017

The world leader in gases, technologies and services for industry and health, Air Liquide is present in 80 countries with approximately 67,000 employees and serves more than 3 million customers and patients. Oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen are among the essential small molecules for life, matter and energy. Essential small molecules embody Air Liquide’s scientific territory and have been at the core of the company’s activities since its creation in 1902.

With the 2016 acquisition of Airgas, Air Liquide has entered a new phase in its development and growth. By combining the Airgas omnichannel approach of physical branch locations, e-business and telesales with Air Liquide innovation capabilities (including digital), the Air Liquide Group is accelerating its customercentric transformation.

Air Liquide serves a wide range of industrial sectors, including automotive and manufacturing, food and pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, steelmaking, semiconductor fabrication and chemical production along with research and technology organizations, including universities. Air Liquide offer its customers – from independent craftsmen to large industrial companies – a range of solutions: industrial and specialty gases, application technologies, welding and safety equipment and related services. Present in the continuum of healthcare from hospital to home, Air Liquide serves 1.4 million patients around the world.

The variety of essential small molecules that Air Liquide offers (including specialty gases, mixtures and new molecules that it designs and manufactures) and the diversity of its customer base requires various product supply chains.

Air Liquide’s cylinder fill plants package gases for delivery to its customers and patients. For higher volume and cryogenic needs, Air Liquide delivers liquefied gases in bulk to permanent on-site storage tanks at its customers’ locations. For its largest volume customers, Air Liquide directly supplies gas from its production plants via extensive pipeline networks in the world’s largest industrial basins (e.g., the U.S. Gulf Coast and the Benelux region in Europe).

As articulated in its NEOS strategic program for 2016-2020, Air Liquide’s customer-centric transformation is founded upon four strategic pillars: operational ormstoday.informs.org

excellence, selective investments, open innovation and a worldwide network organization. In Air Liquide’s Computational & Data Science R&D Global Lab, we apply our innovative and entrepreneurial spirit – the creative oxygen that sustains our growth – and advanced methods in operations research (O.R.) and analytics to support these strategic pillars and address our common challenges in the energy and environmental transition, the healthcare evolution and the digital transformation.

O.R. and Analytics at Air Liquide Over the years, Air Liquide’s activities in O.R. and analytics have broadened from advanced process control to optimization and data science. As the focus evolves from operational excellence (e.g., efficiency and reliability) to support business growth (including sales, marketing and finance), the need for broadening expertise continues with a focus on statistics and financial economics. In research groups located in Paris, Delaware and Shanghai, we in Computational & Data Science R&D serve at the scientific core of these activities, engaging with a range of internal and external partners to remain at the forefront of technology. In addition to O.R. and analytics activities, our research includes connected devices, computational fluid dynamics and molecular modeling. Our research portfolio extends from exploratory research in line with broad scientific and technology trends impacting our business to key projects focused upon clear and present business and customer needs.

At Air Liquide, innovation in O.R. and analytics is a collaborative effort beyond R&D. Our Alizent entity, dedicated to Industrial IoT, develops, deploys and supports interactive monitoring and control solutions for returnable assets (e.g., cylinders), remote assets (e.g., customer storage tanks, delivery vehicles/drivers), and production assets of internal

All About the Roundtable The Roundtable consists of the institutional members of INFORMS with member company representatives typically the overall leader of O.R. activity. The Roundtable is composed of about 50 organizations that have demonstrated leadership in the application of O.R. and advanced analytics. The Roundtable culture is peer-to-peer, encouraging networking and sharing lessons learned among members.

The Roundtable meets three times a year. Roundtable goals are to improve member organizations’ OR/MS practice, help Roundtable representatives grow professionally and help the OR/MS profession to thrive. Further information is available at http:// roundtable.informs.org.

The Roundtable also has an advisory responsibility to INFORMS. According to its bylaws, “The Roundtable shall regularly share with INFORMS leadership and advise the INFORMS Board on its views, its suggested initiatives and its implementation plans on the important problems and opportunities facing operations research and the management sciences as a profession and on the ways in which INFORMS can deal proactively with those problems and opportunities.” The Roundtable meets with the INFORMS presidentelect each spring to discuss practice-related topics of interest to him or her, and with the entire INFORMS Board each fall to discuss topics of mutual concern.

This series of articles aims to share with the INFORMS membership at large some information and insights into how O.R. is carried on in practice today.

and external clients alike. Our digital fabs foster cross-disciplinary collaboration with our operations on strategic topics with a particular focus on data and our customer-centric transformation.

Air Liquide’s worldwide network of modern R&D centers provides a diverse environment for innovation with various national, scientific and business line backgrounds present. Our team members in O.R. and analytics come from a variety of backgrounds including chemical, industrial, mechanical and electrical engineering along with statistics and computer science.

Some team members follow their project work into business and management roles outside of R&D, while others pursue a technical career path recognized as experts in our international expertise program. In R&D, we have valuable opportunities to work among and across different business lines and operational entities, with whom close proximity is essential to the successful application of O.R. and analytics to benefit our customers and business.

Rendering of Air Liquide’s Paris-Saclay Research Center in France.

Photo credit: Michel Remon of Golem Images

August 2017

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Roundtable Profile Open innovation is one of the ways that R&D accelerates innovation. In Computational & Data Science R&D, we are particularly engaged with the innovation ecosystem in North America and Europe, sponsoring research at leading academic institutions including Carnegie Mellon University and École Polytechnique, among others. Our Paris-Saclay Research Center is engaged within the Paris-Saclay innovation cluster that includes leading universities, engineering and business schools, research institutes, and industrial research and development centers. Our Delaware Research & Technology Center is located in close proximity to Philadelphia and the innovation clusters of the northeastern United States. Through our collaboration with Virginia Tech,Air Liquide is a leader among the industrial members of the Center for Excellence in Logistics and Distribution (CELDi), a multi-university research consortium. Our external engagement enables us to gain valuable insights from research and applications in the chemical and process industries and beyond.

A particular example of open innovation is our sponsorship of the 2016 ROADEF/EURO Challenge on the inventory routing problem (IRP), a key optimization challenge for both industry and the scientific community. The open challenge is organized every two years by ROADEF and EURO, the French and European counterparts to INFORMS respectively, to solve an industrially-relevant research problem proposed by the sponsor.

Worldwide Applications of O.R. and Analytics In the past, the bulk of Air Liquide’s liquefied gas customers managed their own inventories and called-in orders, operating in a customer-managed inventory

Air Liquide bulk storage tank and cryogenic trailer for delivery.

Photo credit: Air Liquide

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August 2017

(CMI) context. Many have now transferred this responsibility to Air Liquide where this vendor-managed inventory (VMI) relationship enables improved insight on the real-time customer demand rate and inventory level, generally transmitted automatically to our operations center using remote telemetry.

To achieve operational efficiencies and customer centricity enabled by the VMI relationship, we develop and deploy advanced enterprise planning and scheduling tools in a mixed VMI/CMI context. Beyond the routing of tractor-trailers to fulfill given orders, such an IRP solution requires effective, reasonable forecasts of customer demand to determine both the timing and the quantity of each customer delivery.The IRP problem offers interesting challenges for both scientific research and industrial practice.

Our sponsorship of the ROADEF/EURO Challenge continues to influence the direction of scientific research by providing industrially relevant benchmark cases that include key practical challenges missing from previously published work on the IRP. The insights that we continue to gain complement our own extensive history on the topic, which includes applications of ant colony optimization, local search heuristics and column generation.

Our optimization work extends to the tactical and strategic level in the design of bulk and packaged gas supply chains. This includes the sizing of distribution fleets, the location of sites (production, filling and transportation depots), the allocation of customers to those sites and the sizing of on-site customer storage. Entities worldwide of various sizes have applied these planning tools to promote operational excellence in the reliable, efficient supply of product to Air Liquide’s customers. Enterprise-wide optimization in the context of production-distribution coordination is of particular interest.

Air Liquide’s “Smart and Innovative Operations” (SIO) program integrates digital tools to analyze operating data from its production plants, exemplified at the new remote operation and optimization center in Lyon, France. Deployed globally, the SIO program focuses on automating and centralizing operations, optimizing the performance of each site and anticipating malfunctions. Consistent, fundamental model templates facilitate the deployment of SIO applications in optimization and data analytics.We have built a core optimization engine in AIMMS that includes model templates for unit operations (e.g., compression, distillation and liquefaction) for users to combine into a “digital twin” of their particular plant or pipeline network.We share knowledge in internal conferences on advanced process control and optimization.

With the SIO program, our operations have established new “operation center analyst” roles with ormstoday.informs.org

The veracity of

e-business traffic to the website. The combination of this strong Airgas infrastructure with our scientific background in O.R. and analytics offers exciting opportunities to deliver value for our stakeholders and customers.

With extensive worldwide operations comprised of various supply chains and a broad customer base having varied applications of essential small molecules, Air Liquide offers unique and varied opportunities for O.R. and analytics Computational & Data Science R&D researchers collaborating. research due to the volume Photo credit: Air Liquide and variety of data, decision responsibility to use optimization tools to define the variables and constraints. Considering the pace of promedium-term production plans and data analysis tools duction and distribution operations, the high velocity to analyze energy consumption relative to similar conof data and decisions will continue to be a challenge ditions in the past, as well as to detect the weak signals and an opportunity (e.g., real-time optimization of that precede a malfunction on critical equipment (prepipeline and plant operations, application of real-time dictive maintenance). In-depth process knowledge and traffic and up-to-date telemetry readings to adapt disexperience in production positions are general qualities tribution schedules). that an analyst brings to the position.With this role, the The veracity of data to be analyzed and applied in community around O.R. and analytics continues to decision-support tools will continue to be a challenge grow within Air Liquide.The community of analysts as we apply greater volumes of data from a variety of is responsible to drive the improvement of digital tools sources (internal and external from various systems). and identify future efficiency projects.

Assuring the veracity of our solutions in light of the In Computational & Data Science R&D, we uncertainty inherent as we consider forecasts well into contribute to the development of in-house tools the future remains a key challenge.This particularly reand the evaluation of commercial-off-the-shelf tools, quires scientific expertise in O.R. for such techniques helping to transform “black box” solutions into “glass as discrete event simulation, adjustable robust optimizabox” solutions.We find that this is critical to promote tion and stochastic optimization. sustained buy-in and use among the end-users of such At Air Liquide, innovation is part of an open, tools. While we remain responsible for evaluating, user-centric ecosystem based on science, technologies, developing and introducing new optimization and customer experience and the incubation of new data science methods, responsibility for broader activities.The ongoing customer-centric transformation deployment transitions to our operational counterparts strategy is modifying ways of working, consuming and – particularly for the specific needs of Air Liquide’s communicating. O.R. and analytics are a keystone of this pipeline operations. transformation in managing assets and interacting with customers, with Computational & Data Science R&D Exciting Future with O.R. and Analytics responsible for evaluating and developing new methods The extensive geographic network of more than to be transferred for widespread application throughout 1,100 Airgas retail branches are the backbone of Air Liquide. ORMS Air Liquide’s close proximity with customers in the Jeffrey E. Arbogast (jeffrey.arbogast@airliquide.

United States, offering small and large businesses com), Ph.D., is an Air Liquide International Expert in Computational & Data Science R&D based in Delaware and individual entrepreneurs a “one-stop shop” for and is Air Liquide’s representative to the INFORMS their cylinder gas and services needs, as well as reRoundtable. Athanasios Kontopoulos, Ph.D., is an Air lated safety and welding hard goods. The branches Liquide International Senior Expert and Scientific Director are fully integrated with and are complemented by of the Computational & Data Science R&D Global Lab digital and telesales activities to improve customer based in Paris-Saclay. The authors thank Jean André and reach and service. In addition to generating direct Bin Yu, Air Liquide International Experts based in Parissales to customers independently, telesales teams Saclay and Delaware, respectively, for their feedback and contributions to this article. support branches and field sales teams, and drive August 2017

data to be analyzed and applied in

decisionsupport tools will continue to be

a challenge as we

apply greater volumes of data from a

variety of sources.

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IN N OVATIVE EDUCATION

‘Undoing’ the teaching of analytics

T Analytics challenges can destroy mental models that decisionmakers have used historically in decision-making.

By Peter C. Bell

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August 2017

he last 10 or so years have been transformational for business analytics. Corporate leaders such as Jeff Bezos at Amazon, analytical innovators in sports such as Theo Epstein (Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox) and leading-edge analytical firms such as IBM, Walmart, UPS and FedEx have moved analytics from “a best kept secret” to top-of-mind for many major corporations. This increased awareness means that we no longer need to explain or “sell” the importance of data and analytics to students taking our courses.

Despite this increasing awareness, leaders of many successful organizations, perhaps a large majority (in 2013, Bain & Company found that “only 4 percent of companies were really good at analytics”) remain primarily experiential/intuitive decision-makers and don’t have much data nor the capabilities or time to perform much serious analytics. As a result, post-experience students arriving to MBA or EMBA programs often come from organizations that don’t possess strong analytics capabilities, but these entering students have often achieved apparent success as decision-makers using their “gut feel” or intuition. Experience and intuition will likely continue to be the key driver of decision-making for these students; they are unlikely to ever perform any serious analytics themselves.

After teaching such students for 40 years or so, I became reasonably ormstoday.informs.org

confident that I was delivering our analytics materials in a way that would influence them to become more analytical, and hopefully more consistently successful as decision-makers. But recently, my teaching has been disrupted.

Disruptive Technology Analytics is often a disruptive technology. Analytics challenges and can sometimes destroy the mental models that decisionmakers have used historically in their decision-making. I have seen mid-career general managers who Peter Bell dropped “Moneyball” movie night after reading Michael Lewis’ new book, “The Undoing Project.” have (successfully) managed firms for some years react negatively and sharply to analytics ideas that contradict long-held

by Michael Lewis, W.W Norton and Company, “I have seen beliefs that have proved successful for them in the past. 2003), but this added too much to an already long mid-career The way that analytics is introduced to these students pre-program reading list.The downside of the movie becomes very important in setting expectations for is that it’s a baseball movie and not all students are the analytics course but also for the remainder of into baseball, although some are happy to watch their MBA or EMBA program. In engineering or Brad Pitt for 190 minutes. The book is much stronmathematics schools, analytics will likely be presented ger on the analytics and not so much about baseball. as a problem-solving tool, but business school analytics The following day during the first analytics who have instructors cannot be too disruptive. We cannot class we discuss the movie and the messages it denigrate the role of experience and intuition (aka contains for managers. While this discussion tends “the gut”) in decision-making since our colleagues to be quite freewheeling, we always spend time managed firms teaching strategy, marketing, entrepreneurism and discussing two key scenes. The first where Billy leadership are developing non-analytical management Beane confronts the scouts with the news that and decision-making skills. Consequently, I frame the recruiting model that they have built their analytics as an input to the decision-making process, careers on is not going to be used anymore. Prenot the output of it. I emphasize that analytics does dictably the scouts react strongly to not make decisions; rather analytics helps intelligent, (“You don’t put a team together on a computer, experienced, knowledgeable managers make better Billy. Baseball isn’t just numbers, it’s not decisions. In support of this view, I make use of science. If it was, anybody could do what we’re several cases where the output of the analytics is doing. But they can’t because they don’t know some kind of risk/return tradeoff where the final what we know. They don’t have our experience discussion leans on the intuition/experience of the and they don’t have our intuition. …. There are that contradict students to arrive at an appropriate tradeoff to lead to intangibles that only baseball people understand. a recommendation. In written work based on these You are discounting what scouts have done for cases, it’s rare that there is any consensus: Conservative 150 years.”) students will recommend low risk actions while more This from the head scout just before he is fired. aggressive risk-takers will opt for decisions that might end up really well but could be a disaster.

For me the most telling (apocryphal?) scene apSince 2011, I started my EMBA analytics core pears near the end when John Henry Jr., the owner class with a movie night.The evening before the first of the Boston Red Sox, is trying to recruit Beane to class, the school provided pop and popcorn, and the manage the Sox. Henry, not an analytics guy but a keen class sat and watched “Moneyball” (Columbia Pic- and involved observer of the development of the game, tures, 2011). This was a compromise solution – my tells Beane: first choice was to have the students read the book “The first guy through the wall always gets (“Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game” bloodied. This is threatening not just their

general managers

(successfully) react negatively analytics ideas

long-held beliefs.

August 2017

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‘Undoing’ ANALYTICS TEACHING

way of doing business but in their minds it’s threatening the game, but really what it’s threatening is their livelihood, threatening their jobs. Threatening the way that they do things and every time that happens … the people who are holding the reins … they go **** crazy. …

Anybody who is not tearing their team down right now and rebuilding it using your model – they’re dinosaurs.”

and discuss the spread of analytics into basketball and other sports, but Lewis then suggests that the remaining chapters of “The Undoing Project” detail can be the development of the basic analytical ideas that made the 2002 Oakland A’s possible. “The Undoing Project” is not an easy read, but it is an immensely and this interesting one that has disrupted the way I think about teaching analytics to our post-experience students.

Lewis documents the great friendship between While I resist presenting any form of summary or psychologists Amos Tversky and Nobel Laureate “answer,” I want students to recognize that analytics is Daniel Kahneman (T&K), their investigations into of an alternative way of thinking and managing that is human decision-making and the many experiments management here to stay and growing in influence and importance. they conducted to try to understand the failure of However, analytics can be disruptive, and this presents a human intuition. Reading “The Undoing Project” host of management challenges and issues. provides the strongest case I have seen of the importance of analytical data-driven decision-making, “The Undoing Project” but the book also leads me to believe that we can I have now dropped “Moneyball” movie night after improve our students’ decision-making skills if we reading Michael Lewis’ new book, “The Undoing can sensitize them to the kinds of basic errors that Project” (W.W. Norton and Company, 2016). I am people make when confronted with the two main an analytics guy. I think like an analytics guy, talk factors that make decision-making difficult: uncerlike an analytics guy and play golf like an analytics tainty and complexity. guy. After reading “The Undoing Project” I have Lewis reports T&K’s lifelong pursuit into how come to realize that in my analytics teaching I need human decision-makers actually respond to uncerto pay more attention to how the rest of the world tainty and complexity. For example, Lewis describes thinks so the content of this book has now replaced T&K’s experiments on people’s reaction to uncertainty.

“Moneyball” as a major discussion item in my first People appear to equate uncertainty with ignorance; if analytics class, and ideas from this book are now we are asked to estimate a value, even something we appearing in many of my classes. Lewis connects “The have no reason to know, we will invariably claim too Undoing Project” to “Moneyball”: The first two great a precision. In analytical terms, our prediction inchapters update baseball analytics post “Moneyball” tervals are way too narrow. In business decision-making, the implication is that we consistently and perhaps severely underestimate risk if we rely on human judgment and not data for our probabilities. T&K concluded that humans process new information poorly; we “mistake the smallest part of a thing for the whole” and “even people trained in statistics and probability theory failed to intuit how much more variable a small sample could be than the general population.”This might explain why business and government managers often “panic” when they receive an exception report when the best action might just be to wait and see if the exception happens again.

T&K also conducted many Peter Bell wants students to recognize that analytics is an alternative way of thinking and managing that exper iments to explore the is growing in influence and importance.

Analytics

disruptive, presents a host

challenges and issues.

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August 2017

ormstoday.informs.org

phenomenon of “haloing”: If you ask the class to bad we humans are at intuitive and experiential write down the last two digits of their phone number decision-making and has provided me with many and then estimate the takeoff weight of a Boeing 777, small experiments that I can do or report in the there will be a positive correlation between the two classroom that will raise students’ awareness of pitfalls sets of values. In business, this bias can occur when a their intuition may land them in. manager who has made a successful decision makes The experiments reported by Lewis in “The Unthe same decision over again even if the circumstances doing Project” make a strong case in support of a view have changed.Through sensitizing our students to this that I have argued in the past: that “much of the benefit behavior, we can also make the point that data and of analytics arises from the analytical problem-solvanalytics provide a vehicle to remove halo bias from ing approach, and while the ‘advanced analytics’ is the our decision-making. cherry on the top, in some (perhaps many) situations, it In analytics, we use probabilities very naturally to might be quite a small cherry” (OR/MS Today, 2016). I describe uncertainty, but T&K conducted experiments am convinced that sensitizing our students to the kinds that suggest that people understand probability very of systematic errors we all tend to make when condifferently.When asked which is more likely: A) a natfronted by complexity and uncertainty will add benefit ural disaster in California that kills a thousand people, of our data-driven analytical problem-solving approach or B) an earthquake in California that kills a thousand and help them develop into better decision-makers. I people, about a third of people will chose option B. recommend “The Undoing Project” to all analytics I tried this in class and was surprised by the result (as instructors. I think it will disrupt the way you teach Lewis reports were T&K). analytics, too. ORMS Among many other topics of interest, Lewis Peter C. Bell (pbell@ivey.ca) is a professor at the Richard explores expert intuition and reports results of many Ivey School of Business, Western University, in London, Ontario, Canada. experiments that demonstrate that human expertise often isn’t very expert. Experts appear to look for “cues” and often form an opinion based on just one or two recognized cues.

He concludes that in most cases, expert judgment is not very expert and can be replicated by simple models. One lesson here is that you cannot simplify all complex decision situations by focusing on one or two key factors (“cues”); you need analytics to Whether you’re a student or employer, help you cope with the complexity.

The book

made me aware of how bad

we humans are at

intuitive and experiential decision-making.

ARE YOU READY FOR A TAUBER TEAM?

Pedagogy & Persuasion There are several pedagogical methods that are useful in trying to persuade our students that analytical thinking can improve their decision-making skills.

For example, we sometimes have our students attack a difficult case before we provide them with the appropriate tools to conduct a reasonable analysis, thus forcing them to be more intuitive and setting up a demonstration of the weakness of their intuition. The theory of this approach is often being expressed as a need for students to “see the wall before they will buy the ladder.” For example, one can challenge students to come up with a decent solution to simultaneous decision problems before they see Excel Solver. Reading “The Undoing Project” made me aware of how

learn how our graduate-level engineering and business team projects benefit everyone involved with high-impact, high ROI projects such as: • • • • • • • •

Lean process design and implementation Manufacturing rationalization plan Strategic site assessment Supply chain implementation plan Strategic Capacity Analysis New product/process development strategy Product complexity analysis Plant floor layout

Submission Deadline Project proposals are due December 1, 2017 for projects starting in summer 2018. Contact Jon Grice at gricej@umich.edu or (734) 647-2220.

Learn more at

tauber.umich.edu August 2017

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IN N OVATIVE EDUCATION EDITOR’S NOTE:

For more than a decade, OR/MS Today has invited the most recent recipient of the INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of OR/MS Practice to contribute an article to the magazine’s annual special issue on innovative education. We ask for a brief description of the awardwinning O.R. program and the reasons for its success, as well as an outline of the recipient’s educational background, teaching philosophy, mentors and advice for their fellow O.R. educators.

Following is the story of the 2016 teaching prize recipient S. Raghu Raghavan.

Industry experiences shape teaching philosophy

W Teaching of OR/MS Practice Award-winning professor’s advice: be yourself, be enthusiastic, be prepared.

By S. Raghu Raghavan

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hat a wonderful honor to receive the 2016 INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of OR/MS Practice and to join a distinguished cohort of educators. As an undergraduate the applied nature of operations research is what drew me to the subject. I was an aerospace engineering major who happened upon an O.R. course purely by accident (it was classified as satisfying a social sciences requirement that all engineering undergraduates were supposed to take). The immediate connection between real-world problem-solving and the analytical models was so powerful that I immediately became a convert. Quite frankly it is an immense joy (and perhaps for me the best job in the world) to have the opportunity to teach and excite students on OR/MS topics as well as their immediate real-world applications.

In my teaching, I aim to popularize the need and use of OR/ MS techniques for decision-making, and to teach students OR/MS decision-making techniques with a specific emphasis on OR/MS practice. Prior to embarking on my academic career, I was fortunate to spend four years at the telephone company U S WEST (now known as CenturyLink) as a freshly minted Ph.D. out of MIT’s Operations Research Center. U S WEST was a recipient of the 1994 INFORMS Prize, and the experiences I gained working with a group of OR/MS ormstoday.informs.org

professionals in practice went a long way in developing my teaching goals and philosophy.

First off, I quickly realized that there are some significant differences between OR/MS in academia and OR/MS practice. OR/MS in academia comes in the form of well-defined problems and solution methods, while OR/MS in practice often comes in the form of poorly structured problem statements and vague notions of goals and constraints. One often finds that the fanciest technique learned as a graduate student may not be the best suited one for the project at hand.

Further, the decision-makers (i.e., the ones who control the purse strings) have a great deal of domain or subject matter expertise but often have no exposure to OR/MS tools and techniques.This creates challenges in convincing them of the potential value of OR/MS techniques (my work at U S WEST predates the recent buzz surrounding business analytics) to “their domain.”

OR/MS in academia has two distinct audiences and foci. The first audience is typically interested in developing strong methodological foundations and the academic focus is similar, with a large amount of exposure to theory.The second audience is typically interested in breadth, and the academic focus is on exposing students to the benefits of OR/MS techniques.

What happens frequently with this second audience is they often get such a rapid exposure in a compressed amount of time that they sometimes lose sight of the value of the techniques or leave with the impression that OR/MS techniques can only solve simple problems. At Maryland (as well as many other business schools) these two audiences come as doctoral students (who are often engaged in providing OR/MS practice when they join the workforce) and MBA students (who are the consumers of OR/MS practice when they join the workforce).

For the long-term health of OR/MS it is important to connect these two audiences (to make them effective practitioners and consumers of OR/MS) much more strongly in an academic environment. I have tried to do this in my teaching. I try to provide the first audience a greater appreciation and understanding of issues related to applying OR/MS in practice. I try to provide the second audience a greater exposure to OR/MS methodologies and applications so they can make those connections and hire the right OR/MS professional when the need arises.

I encourage doctoral students to take summer internships at companies and to use real-world problems to motivate their thesis.Although the work is often very technical, it is clearly focused on problems motivated from OR/MS practice. I work closely with the student through the problem formulation phase (meeting with

the industrial contact) and the development of solution techniques that are appropriate for the practical situation.With MBA students (who are critical to OR/MS as consumers of OR/MS practice), I spend a large amount of time exposing them to a wide variety of real-world cases and the application of OR/MS techniques.

One important focus is to make those connecS. Raghu Raghavan was the 2016 recipient of the INFORMS tions between business Prize for the Teaching of OR/MS Practice. situations and OR/MS opportunities that I often do by bringing guest speakers from industry to my classes.

I’ve had the opportunity to teach more than a thousand students over the past 19 years. My students have played the most significant role in shaping my have played teaching – and the ones I owe the greatest thanks to. the Their probing questions and their desire to closely see OR/MS practice in the classroom have a large part to play in influencing my teaching.With them I have conducted many research projects from OR/MS practice. Most of these projects are used in my teaching materials for my master’s- (MBA, Executive MBA and M.S. programs) and Ph.D.-level courses.The two in projects described below provide a snapshot of how I engage my students in real-world OR/MS projects and help them develop into effective OR/MS practitioners

My students

most significant role

Budget Allocation at Catholic Relief Services It all began with a class project, and it ended up changing the budgeting process for an international relief agency. We (MBA student Rick Nidel, Ph.D. student Ioannis Gamvros and I) used optimization methods to help decision-makers at Catholic Relief Services (CRS) allocate the agency’s budget in a way that was aligned with their strategies and goals.

Nidel, who had worked for CRS for 10 years before becoming an MBA student, was taking an MBA elective course with me. The exposure to OR/MS techniques and applications in the course helped Nidel see the potential for OR/MS tools in helping the agency with its budgeting process (which he described at a very high level in his class project).To take this to fruition Nidel approached the two of us.

Each year, CRS allocates about $70 million in unrestricted funds – donations which have not August 2017

shaping my teaching – and the ones I owe

the greatest thanks to.

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Shaping TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

The

decision process needed to be

equitable, transparent and easily understandable to the

agency’s stakeholders.

been designated for a specific purpose – to relief and development efforts in 90 countries. CRS wanted its budget allocation process to reflect its priorities: the alleviation of poverty, the reduction of HIV/AIDS, the empowerment of women, and the preservation and promotion of civil liberties and human rights.The decision process needed to be equitable, transparent and easily understandable (i.e., it needed to be simple enough so that people without extensive mathematical backgrounds could use it and understand it) to the agency’s stakeholders, including donors and managers of relief programs around the world that receive support from CRS. Together, we designed a model and a spreadsheet tool for the agency, defining a metric that helped the agency maximize the investment impact of unrestricted funds. The model considered a plethora of complex factors, such as the agency’s philanthropic goals, the size of a country’s population relative to its need, the availability of public funding and the efficiency of the relief program.The leadership at CRS was very pleased with the results of our team’s work as it allowed the agency’s decision-makers to approach budgeting decisions with increased consistency and professionalism.

An important lesson we learned while conducting this project was how important it was for our nonquantitative audience to understand the methodology (in terms of what the model was trying to achieve and what the objective and constraints meant in simple words) to gain acceptance of the tool and become engaged users. In fact, the first model we developed (a classic knapsack problem with lower and upper bounds) resulted in a solution that was perceived to be unfair by the stakeholders.This required a better understanding of their concerns and the development of a second model

Former student Mustafa Sahin (left), who just earned his Ph.D. and will be joining the data science team at Uber, and professor S. Raghu Raghavan.

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August 2017

that they bought into.This case also illustrates to students the iterative process that OR/MS practice requires.

The work was selected as a finalist for the Wagner Prize competition in 2005, and the Interfaces article [2] associated with it is used extensively in my teaching.

High-Stakes Government Auctions Around the World This project was based on the interactions among my student Bob Day and me, with the staff at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as well as Power Auctions Inc. and Market Design Inc. (two of the worlds’ leading firms in the design and implementation of high-stake auctions). Day was a pure math student who wanted to switch to working on applied problems in the real world. Given his background as an economics and mathematics undergrad, I got him involved in my research interactions with the FCC. Auctions typically involve the sale or purchase of many related items. Unlike a traditional auction where a single good is auctioned off to the highest bidder, a combinatorial auction allows bidders to bid on combinations of objects (i.e., on packages).

This may make sense if goods are complementary (for example, the value of wireless spectrum for Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia may be worth $10 million each, but together may be worth $25 million) or substitutes. At the time, governments in many countries across the world (including the U.S. and the U.K.) were interested in using combinatorial auctions to auction off their telecommunications spectrum and landing rights at airports. A vexing problem they faced was how to determine the payments of the winners in the combinatorial auction.

Economists had earlier suggested using Vickrey payments for winners in the combinatorial auction. Unfortunately, Vickrey payments had some well-documented problems. In simple terms, they could lead to situations where winners in the auction may make payments that are so low that a group of losing bidders is able to provide an alternative allocation and set of payments (bids in the auction that just concluded) that generate higher revenue than that paid by the winning bidders! This is clearly not perceived as being fair, or acceptable, especially in a government-conducted auction.

Consequently, there was consensus in the literature (and industry) for the use of core payments by winning bidders in the combinatorial auction.With these payments, no group of bidders can offer an alternative allocation and set of payments that both the bidders and seller prefer. In other words, core payments are perceived to be fair by all the bidders. ormstoday.informs.org

The problem was that there was no efficient way to compute these core payments until our work.

Using techniques from the mathematical programming toolkit we showed how to model the problem of determining core payments as a linear program with an exponential number of constraints.We then developed a novel constraint generation procedure that starts with a few constraints in the linear program and adds constraints iteratively to the linear program.The core constraint generation (CCG) technique we developed was several orders of magnitude faster than the previous techniques to obtain core payments.With our approach, the last step was now in place, and governments around the world (U.K., Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark,Australia and Canada) started running combinatorial auctions using our algorithm. Indeed, billions of dollars have been raised by these governments using our algorithm as an integral part of their auctions.

This work was selected by EURO as a finalist for the 2009 EURO Excellence in Practice Award (an award given to recognize outstanding accomplishments in the practice of OR/MS).The Management Science paper [1] is used in my Ph.D. course, while a presentation that covers the work but without a discussion of the finer points of the constraint generation technique is used in my MBA class.

Teaching Advice I find it hard to give specific teaching advice since I feel teaching is an experience where both the style and background of the instructor and student come into play. Having said that, here are three things to keep in mind that have worked for me.

Be yourself: Early in my academic career, I attended many INFORMS teaching workshops and attended the classes of colleagues who were “star teachers.” I found that using many successful ideas didn’t necessarily work well for me. I eventually realized that teaching is most effective when you are relaxed and yourself. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experiment with successful ideas from other faculty. Rather, it means you need to adapt things to best suit your own style and mannerisms.

If you are consciously thinking about your teaching style while teaching, then you may not be able to engage with students and pay attention to other aspects of classroom interaction with students.

Be enthusiastic: There are many topics I know well, but I’ve found that I do better in teaching some of these topics better than others. Why? Enthusiasm for a topic rubs off on others. Just think back to the professors who have most excited or interested you in a subject or topic.

Be prepared: Students come from a variety of backgrounds, and discussions (especially of OR/ MS techniques applied to practice) can veer off in different directions. One key facet in gaining students’ trust is to be willing to explore these questions and to be sufficiently knowledgeable when the topic moves away from the presented material. I recall teaching a part-time MBA class the deferred acceptance matching algorithm due to Gale and Shapley that is used to match residents and hospitals. As I finished the discussion a student raised her hand and said, “I work for the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), and that was the best explanation I have seen from an academic about how the method works.” She proceeded to discuss other aspects of the match and asked me additional questions related to issues that are faced in practice with this matching process.Thankfully, this was a topic I had spent a fair amount of time studying and passed the test from the domain expert.

Teaching the joys of

OR/MS tools and techniques and their wide

applicability in practice is what

excites me

Closing Thoughts Teaching the joys of OR/MS tools and techniques and their wide applicability in practice is what excites me every day, and something I consciously chose when I decided to give up industry for academia. I view my students’ successes as my own success, and it gives me the greatest pleasure seeing them succeed.

These students have won many awards for their practice-oriented research projects (e.g., INFORMS Dantzig Dissertation Award, INFORMS UPSSOLA Dissertation Award, INFORMS Computing Society Prize, EURO Management Science Strategic Innovation Prize, to name a few) and it has been a privilege to work with each and every one of them.

I’d like to mention former Ph.D. students Bob Day and Ioannis Gamvros for their great partnership in some very high-stakes OR/MS practice projects, and former MBA student Commissioner Mark Acton at the Postal Regulatory Commission for being an enthusiastic consumer of OR/MS practice. ORMS

every day.

S. Raghu Raghavan (raghavan@rhsmith.umd.edu) is a professor of management science and operations management at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. Raghavan was awarded the 2016 Prize for the Teaching of the Operations Research/ Management Science Practice from INFORMS.

REFERENCES 1. R. Day and S. Raghavan, 2007, “Fair Payments for Efficient Allocations in Public Sector Combinatorial Auctions,” Management Science, Vol. 53, No. 9, pp. 1,389-1,406.

2. Gamvros, R. Nidel and S. Raghavan, 2006, “Investment Analysis and Budget Allocation at Catholic Relief Services,” Interfaces, Vol. 36. No. 5, pp. 400-406.

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IN N OVATIVE EDUCATION

MAPD maps out the future of analytics education

T Inaugural INFORMS Meeting of Analytics Program Directors meets the needs of fast-growing academic interest area.

By Melissa R. Bowers 30 | ORMS Today

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he number of master of science (MS) in analytics degree programs increased from five in 2007 to 192 in 2016. Prompted by the rapid proliferation of analytics programs, INFORMS launched the first annual Meeting of Analy tics Program Directors (MAPD) on April 1, the Saturday preceding the INFORMS Business Analy tics Conference in Las Vegas. Sixty-three program representatives attended. The day-long meeting provided a forum for current and future directors of analytics programs to freely discuss issues and challenges common among such programs, share best practices and learn about industry’s view of graduate analytics programs.

Growth in Analytics Programs In 2011, the McKinsey Global Institute forecast a shortage in the supply of deep analytical talent in the United States on the order of 140,000 people by 2018. In December 2016, in a follow-on report, McKinsey reported that while data and analytics capabilities have advanced significantly, the acquisition of analytics talent remains a challenge, and that “most companies are capturing only a fraction of the potential value of data and analytics” [1, 2]. To fill the analytics talent gap, universities continue to add graduate programs in analytics, primarily MS programs in analytics, business analytics and data science through a mixture of part-time, online and full-time formats as depicted in Figure 1. In fact, the MS program market experienced 18 percent and 29 percent increases in U.S. full-time MS programs in analytics and business analytics programs, respectively, from 2015 to 2016 as shown in Figures 2 and 3, while the number of full-time MS programs in data science remained unchanged from 2015-2016 as displayed in Figure 4. The data sources for Figures ormstoday.informs.org

1-4 were the North Carolina State Institute for Advanced Analytics (fall 2016) website and individual program websites (fall 2016-spring 2017). The North Carolina State website included full-time, parttime, online, other and blended MS programs in the United States.

Connection Between Industry and Analytics Because an interaction with industry is central to the success of any graduate analytics program, Melissa Bowers leads a session at the 2017 MAPD in Las Vegas. the meeting kicked off with an industry presentation entitled “An Industry View of Graduate Analytics Programs” by to promote placement, but more importantly, to David Dittmann, director of Business Intelligence provide analytics students the opportunity to solve & Analytics at Procter & Gamble. Drawing from real-world analytics problems as a part of their cur20 years of experience in operations research and riculum to ensure relevance. analytics at P&G, Dittmann presented an overview of analytics at Procter & Gamble followed by an Student Recruiting and Placement insightful assessment of the industry needs of MS in The success of any analytics program also depends analytics programs. on both student recruiting and placement as they Dittmann pointed out that to be successful anaform synergistic “bookends.” Recruiting the lytics professionals in industry, students must possess right students into a program directly impacts the strong technical, programming and model-building placement outcome. Likewise, a successful placement skills along with strong database management skills, history positively impacts student recruiting. since, based on his experience, a significant portion Michael Rappa of North Carolina State of analytics time is spent dealing with messy data. University provided specific insight during a session However, he emphasized that students must not rely entitled “Recruiting the Right Students and Placing simply on garnering a command of analytics tools, but must gain a fundamental understanding of analytics methods and business principles to accompany their expertise in computing and database systems.

According to Dittmann, to prepare graduates to succeed in industry, analytics programs must emphasize the importance of adapting and continuously learning new tools necessary to solve new and existing analytics problems rather than learning a specific tool. As such, it is critical that students gain experience working on real-world analytics problems as a part of their curriculum.Through that experience, it is imperative that students learn the necessary skills to communicate their ideas, insights and analytic results clearly to sell their analytic recommendations. Finally, Dittmann emphasized the value that a demonstrated passion for analytics along with the ability to think creatively and critically contribute toward a successful industry career in analytics.

In summary, analytics programs must maintain strong industry ties to make certain that their Figure 1: Growth in master of science programs in analytics (A), business analytics graduates meet the evolving needs of employers (BA), data science (DS) and other (O).

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MAPD MAPS OUT FUTURE

Important

them in Internships and Permanent Positions,” which was followed by a panel discussion facilitated

by Terry Harrison (Penn State University), with panelists De Liu (University of Minnesota) and Betsey Voorhees (Michigan State University).

Rappa provided detailed admissions and placement data on North Carolina State’s MS in analytics program. At NC State, each student applicant participates in an in-person panel interview to help identify the set of incoming students best suited for the program that focuses on producing team players well-versed in analytics methodologies and tools with top-notch communication skills.

Voorhees described placement success at Michigan State through career fairs to facilitate both internship and permanent job placement. On the recruiting side, the panelists also endorsed methodologies to reach out directly to potential applicants via undergrad career fairs or through undergraduate quantitatively-oriented clubs, since it is critical to reach potential student applicants early to ensure enrollment in appropriate prerequisite courses. For students who have demonstrated strong quantitative abilities but lack the appropriate prerequisite classes, programs may choose to provide online or in-house resources to deliver the prerequisite knowledge base.

lessons learned include

obtain project data well in advance and let the

students learn by doing.

Capstone/Practicum Experience and the Curriculum Parallel breakout sessions covered a variety of program approaches to two vital components of every

Figure 2: Growth in MS analytics programs.

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analytics program: a capstone/practicum experience and the analytics curriculum.

The capstone/practicum session provided brief overviews of two different MS in business analytics capstone experiences presented by Mike Fry (University of Cincinnati) and Melissa Bowers (University of Tennessee, Knoxville), along with an overview of the practicum experience in the MS in business analytics program at Wake Forest University presented by Jeff Camm.

The practicum experience at Wake Forest differs slightly from the capstone experience at the University of Tennessee, with the course structure and timing being the primary difference.The Wake Forest practicum is rolled out as three half-semester courses at the end of the students’ academic program, while at the University of Tennessee, the capstone is a semester-long course delivered in students’ final semester of study. In both, students work on real-world industry projects in teams, as the coursework guides them through standard project task requirements such as determining project scope, data acquisition and cleaning, analysis, generating insights and recommendations, and implementation.

Both require an oral presentation to the industry client, along with a written technical report and software with documentation as applicable. Similarly, both also focus on soft skills development in the areas of leadership, teamwork and project management.

The capstone project at the University of Cincinnati is not limited to one standard prescribed format. Instead, the capstone is an individual student effort and may take one of three different forms.The student capstone project may focus on a research project sponsored by the Center for Business Analytics, an internship project or the extension of a course case analysis or project. For all capstone project options at the University of Cincinnati, the deliverable is a written technical report.

Important lessons learned include: standardize industry nondisclosure agreements, obtain project data well in advance, institute a standard formal statement of work with the industry partner, be prepared for a project requiring big data technologies, and let the students learn by doing.

The curriculum session provided overviews of an established MS in business analytics program, an MS in business analytics program ready to launch in the fall of 2017 and one in the early stages of development set to launch in the 2018-2019 academic year. Don Kleinmuntz, University of Notre Dame Chicago, described the curriculum of the university’s established MS in business analytics (MSBA) program with a course format similar ormstoday.informs.org

to that of an executive MBA program. Harish Krishnan, University of British Columbia (UBC), and James Cochran, University of Alabama, both detailed developing MSBA programs.

Regardless of program format, in general, the analytics curricula include content in the areas of statistics, operations research, data mining, database management and computing taught in the context of descriptive, predictive and prescriptive modeling. However, the format, including credit hours, duration and mode of delivery, along with specific required and elective content, often differs. Because the students are employed while attending, the Notre Dame Chicago MSBA program is a weekend program taught in Chicago requiring a trio of four- or five-day residency periods on the South Bend campus.The program requires 30 credit hours of analytics coursework delivered over a 12-month period. While the program initially had an online component, it is now delivered entirely in a face-to-face environment. It is a lock-step program with no electives.

UBC’s MS in management and operations research program is transitioning to a MSBA program

Figure 3: Growth in MS business analytics programs.

this fall. The new, 30-credit-hour program is taught in residence at UBC over a nine-month period. Students may choose an optional internship/capstone project that extends the program to one year. The curriculum is also a lock-step program.

O.R. & ANALYTICS STUDENT TEAM COMPETITION

IN

ST FOR U MS D O.R EN . & T AN TE ALY A TIC M S CO

M

PE TI TI O

N

Apply for this INFORMS competition that provides workplace experience for undergraduate and master’s level students. Teams use O.R. and Analytics to make decisions and solve a real-world business problem.

Finalists will present solutions live to an expert panel at the 2018 INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research in Baltimore, Maryland.

Monetary awards will be granted to all finalist teams, as well as award certificates for each team member and school. Finalists will also receive a travel stipend and complimentary registration to the Analytics Conference.

TITLE SPONSOR:

Learn more at http://connect.informs.org/oratc/home August 2017

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MAPD MAPS OUT FUTURE

Analytics programs

The University of Alabama’s MSBA program, in the early stage of development, is designed to be flexible to suit the needs of students. Many topical areas are presented as a set of two courses so that students can earn a certificate after completing both classes in a series. The class structure is designed for coursework in the mornings Monday through Thursday, leaving afternoons and Fridays open for seminars, project work and case analysis. A seminar series will allow for flexibility to incorporate continuously evolving cutting-edge content.

should include

instruction on creative thinking,

Industry View of Academic Programs in Analytics Pooja Dewan, chief data scientist at BNSF Railway, facilitated an industry panel that included Timothy Merkle of Steelcase, Inc., Zahir Balaporia of FICO, Cara Curtland of Hewlett-Packard, Catherine Gihlstorf of SAS Institute and Janine Kamath of the Mayo Clinic.

Panelists provided insight on the desired attributes for analytics hires. While keen technical skills are a requirement, they all agreed that a degree in analytics is sufficient to demonstrate technical ability. Thus, they seek students with business acumen, soft skills, an innate curiosity about data, good communication and presentation skills, domain knowledge, creativity, resourcefulness, the ability to deal with ambiguity, the ability to learn from failure, and students who are team players, quick learners and “big picture thinkers.”

business

problem framing, soft skills and the

elevator pitch.

Figure 4: Growth in MS data science programs.

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August 2017

To turn out graduates with these desired characteristics, the panelists indicated that analytics programs should broaden their academic programs to include instruction on creative thinking, business problem framing, soft skills and the elevator pitch, as well as an internship or work experience.

INFORMS Service to Analytics Programs INFORMS created a centralized online tool and data repository to help analytics program constituents learn more about the growing population of analytics programs. Sharif Melouk (University of Alabama) took the audience for a test-drive of the INFORMS site. Melouk pointed out many features on the site including: • resources of interest to analytics faculty members such as course syllabi, cases and data sets, along with access to INFORMS analytics publications and Edelman and Wagner Prize competitions; • a prototype academic program database populated with a static, limited set of program data assembled during the last several years; • relevant resources for current and future program directors, as well as administrators seeking to start a program in analytics; • information for those seeking either the CAP® (Certified Analytics Professional) or aCAP (Associate Certified Analytics Professional) certification; and • information for industry executives who wish to partner with an analytics program or hire analytics professionals.

A Call to Action As the number of analytics programs continues to grow, a data-driven formal program ranking is inevitable. As such, Terry Harrison facilitated a session entitled, “Making Analytics Program Data Available – A Design Discussion,” to propose that analytics program directors collectively design an analytics program database provided by and curated directly from the source – directors of analytics programs themselves. As Harrison pointed out in his presentation, the database will serve many purposes, the most important of which is to provide comprehensive, transparent, accurate and timely data for use by potential analytics students in identifying the analytics program for which they are best suited. Thus, the programs will be incentivized to continuously update their program data to ensure that potential students always have access to the most up-to-date program data. ormstoday.informs.org

REFERENCES

In addition, the repository will serve as a source of benchmarking data for program directors, establish a cooperative environment for the exchange of best practices, and deliver value to the discipline as the data will be created and distributed by the analytics programs themselves instead of a third party. It will require time, effort and collaboration among analytics program directors to accomplish this task. To start the development process, we have established a forum for discussion as an INFORMS Connect site. For more information on the site, contact Bill Griffin (bgriffin@informs.org) at INFORMS. Future Vision MAPD is committed to providing a forum to share best practices, spawn new ideas, discuss common concerns and provide networking opportunities to benefit analytics program directors. As such, we envision the MAPD meeting agenda evolving each year to meet the dynamic needs of both current and future analytics program directors in the rapidly changing analytics discipline.

CALL FOR ENTRIES A $15,000 Competition with a $10,000 First Prize

Application Deadline: October 18, 2017 KEY DATES FOR THE COMPETITION Wednesday, October 18, 2017 Deadline to provide a single pdf document containing a three-page summary of your achievement, and a cover page with a 60-word abstract, and the name, address, phone number, and affiliation of each author.

Monday, December 11, 2017 Finalists will be selected based on the summaries and the INFORMS Practice Section verification process.

Friday, February 9, 2018 Deadline for finalists to provide a full written paper.

Sunday, April 15, 2018 Each finalist group will give an oral presentation of their work in a special session at the INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics & O.R. in Baltimore, MD, April 15−17, 2018.

1. James Manyika, Michael Chui, Brad Brown, Jacques Bughin, Richard Dobbs, Charles Roxburgh and Angela Hung Byers, “Big Data: The Next Frontier for Innovation, Competition and Productivity,” McKinsey Global Institute, May 2011.

2. Nicolaus Henke, Jacques Bughin, Michael Chui, James Manyika, Tamim Saleh, Bill Wiseman and Guru Sethupathy, “The Age of Analytics: Competing in a Data-Driven World,” McKinsey Global Institute, December 2016.

The 2017 MAPD survey of attendees showed that 100 percent of those responding indicated that they were either very likely or somewhat likely to attend this event frequently. Thus, we are proud to say that the first annual Meeting of Analytics Program Directors was a success.

The 2017 meeting committee, chaired by Melissa Bowers, included Jeff Camm, Pooja Dewan, Mike Fry, Bill Griffin, Terry Harrison, Sharif Melouk and Jill Wilson.Thanks to all.

The second MAPD meeting is scheduled for April 14, 2018, the day before the 2018 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference in Baltimore. Make plans now to attend. ORMS Melissa Bowers (mrbowers@utk.edu), associate professor and Beaman Professor of Business, is the director of the MS in Business Analytics program in the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. She chaired the inaugural 2017 Meeting of Analytics Program Directors in Las Vegas.

ABOUT THE COMPETITION

The purpose of the competition is to bring forward, recognize, and reward outstanding examples of operations research, the management sciences, and advanced analytics in practice. The client organization that uses the winning work receives a prize citation; the authors of the winning work receive a cash award.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

Visit the website www.informs.org/edelmanaward for detailed information.

Entries should report on a completed practical application and must describe results that had a significant, verifiable, and preferably quantifiable impact on the performance of the client organization. Finalist work will be published in the January-February 2019 issue of Interfaces.

Any work you have done in recent years is eligible, unless it has previously been described by a Franz Edelman Award finalist. Previous publications of the work does not disqualify it. Anyone is eligible for the competition except a member of the judging panel.

SUBMISSIONS INFORMATION

Please visit www.informs.org/edelman for details on the competition and to submit your application.

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IN N OVATIVE EDUCATION

The making of an MSBA program

“UC Industry demand, diverse entering class drive the UC Davis Master of Science in Business Analytics program, set to launch this fall.

By Sanjay Saigal

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Davis is my dream school!”

An admissions coach must have stressed the need for such a declaration – “and make it passionate!”

– to a tutorial on admission interviews somewhere in cyberspace, I decided. I heard it so frequently I began to anticipate it in every admission interview, betting myself how soon it would turn up. And there were a lot of interviews – at least 170 by our records.

Why did we invest in such a high-touch admissions effort? How did we go about it? How did our firstever admissions cycle work out? To answer those questions, I should start by describing the UC Davis Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) program.

An analytics-oriented master’s degree program was first mooted at UC Davis’ Graduate School of Management (GSM) more than seven years ago. However, the current realization of the notion began to take shape in discussions with two GSM colleagues – Hemant Bhargava and Prasad Naik – in late 2013. There were about 30 master’s programs in analytics in the United States at the time. Surveying the field, it seemed to us that for every truly innovative program out there, there were multiple “product extensions”: often operations research programs reorganized under the analytics label. Even though I do not recall it being a matter of explicit discussion, an early strategic decision for us was to not extend, say, the existing ormstoday.informs.org

business analytics concentration of the UC Davis MBA. We decided instead to have our design reflect industry demand.

Most of our conversations were with Silicon Valley firms. Dozens of industry interviews later, we had the essential elements. Hiring managers were telling us that their dream program would be: • Relevant – teach material that graduates could use on Day One at their new job • Practical ­– ensure that students experienced the complete decision analytic life-cycle • Quick – less focus on function-specific knowledge that would be learned on the job, and more on core skills

Sanjay Saigal and his colleagues designed the MSBA program at UC Davis to meet the demands of industry.

That led us to design an MS in business analytics that would: Prepare students for business impact. To the standard computing and statistics, we added a threecourse sequence focusing on effectively translating analytic insight into profitable change. In other words, unlike a purely technical program focusing on turning information into insight, we would teach how to turn insight into influence.

The program’s first order imperative would be to “learn by doing.” Instead of a capstone project occurring at the end of the program, we designed a practicum spanning the entire duration of the MSBA. Student teams would collaborate on a soup-to-nuts consultative engagement with an industry partner, learning the ups and downs of a real engagement, and quickly applying “book learning” from their courses to the practicum effort.

After considering multiple configurations, we settled on a short 10-month program spanning three and one-half quarters. We would do away with summer internships. By leveraging the deep experience gained during the practicum, our students would graduate job-ready.

An immediate consequence of our program wireframe was the need to extend our student search beyond the usual quant disciplines. Real analytics is done in teams, with colleagues from different functions, motivations and backgrounds. We decided to explicitly search for

students with diverse backgrounds and interests, specifically focusing on four key competencies: 1) quantitative skills (of course!), 2) data and computing, 3) business exper ience and 4) organizational savvy.

We realized quickly that our portfolio-oriented admissions process would need to be more flexible and open to ongoing improvement than

Figure 1: Mix of entering class by experience.

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Making an MSBA PROGRAM

The

entering class has an

excellent mix of students fresh

out of college and

experienced working professionals.

a single ranking process. We’d be picking students in skill buckets, without good foreknowledge of applications to come. Recall that we were recruiting for our charter class, with no historical basis on which to forecast the shape and composition of the demand.

As it turned out, we needn’t have worried.

Winnowing the more than 600 submitted applications, we have had no trouble whatsoever exceeding our planned Year One enrollment of 40 students. The entering class has an excellent mix of students fresh out of college and experienced working professionals, as seen in Figure 1 in the split between fresh (0-1 years since graduation), early-career (2-5 years work experience) and midcareer (6+ years work experience) students.

Ensuring gender equality, a key diversityrelated objective, drove our outreach efforts domestically and abroad. As a result, slightly more than half of admitted students are women, even though gender was never a factor in admissions decisions.

Student backgrounds are also quite diverse.

In addition to business and STEM majors such as accounting, economics, finance, electrical engineering and statistics, our students have degrees in journalism, psychology, GIS, urban

Figure 2: Mix of entering class by primary skills.

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studies, construction management, political science and even public relations! One in five students have master’s degrees, including MBAs. The skill-set distr ibution is not quite as planned. While quantitative, business and organizational skills were extant among applicants, computing skills were less so, as seen in Figure 2. In response, we created a professional development scholarship to encourage students to improve their computing ability through a structured proposal/selection process before they arrive in class. The response has been gratifying, though at the time of this writing it remains to be seen if skills will actually show the expected improvement.

Practicum teams are formed based on evidence of project-specific competencies. In addition to the four skill sets mentioned before, teamassignment attributes include project management and data management. In all cases, we look at evidence from transcripts or descriptions of work done, not students’ self-assessment.

At the time of this writing, we’re still two months from the first day of classes. We realize that no battle plan survives the first skirmish.

We’ll learn a great deal from student performance over the coming academic year. And we shall tune the admissions process based on the evidence. One prospect is clear: Thanks to a well-designed enrollment system, we have all the data we need. We’ve already begun to extract descriptive statistics from the database.

In coming months, we’ll be eating our own dog food – assessing our admissions criteria and decisions against student outcomes in coursework and placements. Perhaps sometime next year, I’ll be able to document our insight into our findings and how we use that knowledge to better deliver the “dream” experience so many of our students expect! ORMS Long-time Silicon Valley tech executive and educator Sanjay Saigal is executive director of the Master of Science in Business Analytics program at the University of California, Davis. He is concurrently a lecturer in the UC Davis MBA and MSBA programs. He is also a professor of business at Minerva Schools at KGI. Following graduate work in applied mathematics at Rice University, Saigal has had multiple consulting and entrepreneurship roles, primarily in Silicon Valley. In 2011, he founded the St. Stephen’s Institute for Management Excellence in New Delhi, India, which he ran through 2014. He has taught decision-making and supply chain management at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management since 2008.

ormstoday.informs.org

ASSOCIATE CERTIFIED ANALYTICS PROFESSIONAL Analyze How aCAP Can Help Launch Your Analytics Career

The Associate Certified Analytics Professional (aCAP) is an entry-level analytics professional who is educated in the analytics process but may not have practice experience.

This prestigious program begins a career pathway leading to the CAP designation.

www.certiďŹ edanalytics.org

IN N OVATIVE EDUCATION

From percentages to algebra

In Middle school mathematics: New style of teaching based on O.R. and scenariobased learning.

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my previous OR/MS Today articles [1, 2], I wrote t h a t t h e a n a l y t i c s m ove m e n t a li g n s f u ll y w i t h the Mathematical Practices par t of the Common Cor e S t ate S t a nda r ds for Mathematics, which recommends using mathematics in meaningful contex ts. Unfor tunately, the leader ship of the mathematics community and the vast majority of math educators know little about our field, and few are aware of the term “analytics.� Consequently, there is a paucity of mathematics curricula that is engaging and relevant.

Our early work, funded by NSF, resulted in two courses, algebraic modeling and probabilistic decision-making, designed for high school seniors. INFORMS provides continuing funding for teacher workshops during the annual conferences and in selected markets around the country. This year Ford funded both high school and middle school teacher workshops at its Dearborn, Mich., assembly plant that included a Ford presentation on the use of analytics. In 2017, we expect to deliver one-day workshops to more than 300 high school and middle school math teachers in four locations: Dearborn, Newark, N.J., Chicago and Houston.

In recent years, my colleagues and I shifted our focus to K-8 grade mathematics. (My teammates include two professors of math education and two longtime math teachers who have served as math consultants for more than a decade.) We had been dabbling in developing stand-alone activities appropriate ormstoday.informs.org

for lower grade levels. I say we were dabbling because we had no coherent plan for developing a systematic approach to any specific math skill.

Several of the examples were published as articles in math teacher journals [3, 4, 5]. We selected diverse problem contexts that we thought might be interesting. Our energies were focused on ensuring that these problems addressed the following questions discussed in a previous OR/MS Today article [1].

1. Would anyone care about the problem context and the answer?

2. Is there a decision to be made?

3. Would simple counting not answer the question?

4. Is there something to discuss in the problem context that goes beyond the basic mathematics?

5. Does the question only ask about the current situation? Are there opportunities to explore how the situation might change?

6. Can multiple similar examples be created that vary enough to maintain student interest?

7. Can students embed themselves in the problem context and produce different answers?

Percentages, a critical middle school math skill, requires a coherent and comprehensive teaching approach.

Image © kzenon | 123rf.com Image

A year ago, I decided to develop a coherent and comprehensive approach to teaching percentages, a critical middle school math skill.

In reviewing current curriculum, I was shocked at the narrow range of applications. Percentages are limited to a few contexts: price discount, sales tax, percent of boys or girls in a group, gratuity and interest on a bank account or loan.

Yet “percentage” is one of the top 2,000 words frequently used as reported in the Corpus of Contemporary American English. Almost every news article that has numeric information includes percentages. Yet teachers who see percentages everywhere have failed to translate this experience into a more meaningful and diverse set of examples for their students. It was this educational gap that motivated our team to develop 15 authentic scenarios and related homework. We recently published these as a textbook titled “From Percentages to Algebra.”

In leading the writing of the text, I took a fresh look at all aspects of percentages beginning with a basic question: Why are percentages needed when rational numbers, decimals and fractions can serve the same function? My answer was that percentages more than rational numbers have a natural range of 0 percent to 100 percent.

The top percentage of 100 percent represents perfection as on an exam, and the lower the percentage, the poorer the performance. The worst score possible on an exam is 0 percent.

The text includes several examples with a goal of 100 percent, such as average grade in a course and passing military special ops training. The text uses scenarios that note that 100 percent may be an unrealistic goal; the standard to be measured against might be a smaller percentage.

For example, the best professional basketball free throw shooters approach 90 percent, and the highest winning team percentage in professional baseball in the last hundred years has never exceeded 73 percent. At the other end of the range, 0 percent is not always a bad result. When tracking high school dropouts or homelessness among veterans, 0 percent is an ideal.

I also scanned textbooks for examples involving more than 100 percent. I was disturbed to see examples such as: “A person ordered 1.5 pizzas. Convert this number into an equivalent percentage.” In the contexts we developed, more than 100 percent arises naturally when making comparisons across time. Our contexts include downloads of an app and revenue or customer growth in a business.

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From Percentages TO ALGEBRA

Decisions A principle that guides our development of the scenarios in all of our texts is that each scenario contains an embedded decision.We avoid typical descriptive application. Who cares to answer the question: “If 60 percent of the class of 30 students are boys, how many boys are in the class?” Why would I need to know? We prefer to tackle the following scenarios: • Which coupon is best when comparing a percent discount to a fixed discount?

• How many volunteers are needed given estimates of the percentages who fail training?

• How may hoodies of each size and color should be ordered given known population percentages for clothing sizes as well as color preferences?

From Percentages to Algebra We began with percentages but soon realized we could design a transition from percentages to algebra. Traditionally, students are introduced to algebra as a new topic with little continuity to earlier math skill development. Texts begin by presenting the elements of an algebraic expression and equation.The

text may include one simple word problem intended to minimally motivate the relevance of algebra. In developing authentic and meaningful contexts for percentages, we found that algebraic representation flowed naturally. For example, a 15 percent coupon for a restaurant can be applied to meals costing different amounts. The middle school student is presented with an algebraic expression to organize his or her approach to calculating savings for different priced meals: savings = 0.15x.

When inserting different values of x, the student learns that x is a variable. If the restaurant also offers an alternative $5 coupon, an algebraic equation can be set up to determine when to use each coupon. Half of our examples logically and meaningfully transition from percentages to algebraic expression to algebraic equation.

The algebraic expression is an efficient way of organizing the calculations for different values of x. When deciding between types of discount, solving an equation for x presents an efficient alternative to repeated trials.

Our natural approach addresses a well-known gap in understanding. Many students do not understand what it means for x to be a variable. In ad-

O.R. course ‘brings math to life’ for high school students Teaching mathematics through meaningful and relevant problems has been inspiring. I’ve been teaching teenagers for 19 years and have been constantly bombarded with the question, “When am I ever going to use this?” As a novice teacher, with a freshly minted bachelor’s degree in mathematics, I tried convincing my students that mathematics is beautiful and should be appreciated as such. Predictably, this line of reasoning largely fell on deaf ears. After several years of my students rolling their eyes at my fascination with the elegance of pure mathematics, I began to concede that the primary use for what I was teaching them was to help them be successful in future mathematics classes.

The realization that the purpose of the vast majority of the mathematics I taught was merely preparation for more advanced, and equally esoteric, mathematics was disillusioning. It became more difficult for me to muster much enthusiasm for teaching topics that I didn’t believe had much practical value for my students’ future lives as citizens, professionals or consumers. Teaching a traditional, algebrabased and calculus-oriented mathematics curriculum to all students disenfranchises most kids and all but guarantees they’ll never get to a point in their mathematics education where they can appreciate the beauty and elegance. I only got to that point near the end of my undergraduate career as I completed my mathematics major.

I enjoyed mathematics as a younger student, mostly because it came relatively easy to me. When I went to

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college, I was taught by academic mathematicians. I learned to a p p r e c i a te m a th e m a ti c s fo r i t s own sake. I came to see science, engineering, economics and other more pragmatic disciplines merely as interesting applications of mathematics. Now I realize a much more productive outlook is to see mathematics as a powerful set of tools for understanding, improving and predicting systems in the real world.

It wasn’t until I started teaching mathematics as a tool for making Thad Wilhelm decisions and solving meaningful problems that the subject truly came to life for my students.

I mostly teach juniors and seniors in high school. They all dutifully take mathematics classes because: (a) they have been told by their parents, teachers and guidance counselors that mathematics is important, and/or (b) they are required to do so if they want to graduate from high school. In my precalculus classes, my students hone their skills at algebraic manipulations by solving problems that have absolutely no practical value. I tell myself that they’re learning valuable problem-solving and strategic-thinking skills, and perhaps they are; but when I give them novel problems to solve independently, the results are not encouraging. ormstoday.informs.org

dition, standard textbooks often fail to differentiate clearly between algebraic expressions and algebraic equations. In an algebraic equation, students see x as simply an unknown to be uncovered and not a variable. Our scenarios’ contexts require students to first work with an algebraic expression before moving on to solve an algebraic equation.

Compound Percentages I can recall being introduced to compounding with an example of accrued interest on a savings account.

In the days of 5 percent annual interest, daily compounding increased this to 5.12 percent, an observable but modest difference. With compounding, a $1,000 account earned $51.20 instead of $50. However, in our day of 1.3 percent interest, compounding increases the earnings from $13 to $13.08. How many children would care about this type of compounding or even small savings accounts? Instead, we envision an app developed by teenagers that was initially downloaded a thousand times. The number of downloads increases by 25 percent each month.

With compound percentages, students find that after the third month the overall number of downloads has increased by 95 percent.

In other scenarios, students compare linear and exponential growth. First, they must choose between two marketing campaigns. One campaign generates linear growth, while the other involves compounding percentage growth. A different scenario explores two programs for reducing the number of homeless veterans. One program generates a linear reduction in the number of homeless, while the other program reduces the number of homeless by a fixed percentage each year. In the latter example, compounding percentages has a diminishing impact.

Scenarios

motivate and reinforce other

related math skills.

Other Math Skills Scenarios also motivate and reinforce other related math skills. For example, compound percentages are represented by an exponential function. An algebraic expression leads naturally to a table as different values of x are tried and recorded. In our examples, a table is not just another artifact but rather a tool for organizing and perceiving how the expression changes with different values of x. Graphs are especially useful for illustrating how linear and compounded growth develop and for identifying the point where compounded growth surpasses linear

By Thad Wilhelm When these same students take my operations research class the following year, however, they are engaged much more actively. We spend a great deal of time trying to understand the problem context in order to model it.

Students all have relevant experiences and perspectives and are eager to share them as we discuss what facets of the scenario to include in our model, what assumptions are reasonable and the reliability of the data we use. Having seen these same students passively trudge through my precalculus curriculum, it’s remarkable to see how energetically they discuss and debate the models we build.

To solve the models, we need some mathematics. For the first time in their mathematics educations, the students see an actual need to develop and deploy mathematics.

They engage in high-level quantitative reasoning. They define variables (after finally coming to terms with what a variable truly is). They use those variables to write functions, equations and inequalities to model objectives and constraints. My students quickly come to see the shortcomings of an education that focuses primarily on paper-and-pencil manipulations when realistic problems become much too large to solve by hand. They come to see the value they bring to the world is not their facility with symbolic manipulations but their ability to conceptualize a problem, model that problem mathematically, program a computer to solve the problem, and then interpret the solution.

Along the way, they ask innumerable “What if?” questions that we can investigate both in the context of the problem and in our mathematical model of it. Developing models was interesting and involved rich discussion, but interpreting the solution and discussing how the solution would be implemented and its implications are the subjects of much more heated debate. The level of interest and engagement I see from students in my operations research class far exceeds what I see even in my honors-level traditional mathematics classes. My students were beginning to see the powerful utility of mathematics to help make better decisions in authentic contexts from business, industry and public policy, as well as their own lives.

As a teacher, this class is a joy to teach. After teaching pre-calculus for more than a decade, there’s very little that can surprise me when it comes to the questions students ask. Their questions are usually about skills, techniques or well-defined concepts. In the operations research classes, students constantly bring their own sets of experiences and insights to bear on the problems and ask questions I’ve never considered. The result is a fast-paced and more genuine dialogue within the class with vastly more studentto-student interaction than in traditional classes where I am involved in almost every exchange. ORMS Thad Wilhelm (twilhelm@birmingham.k12.mi.us) teaches mathematics and operations research at Seaholm High School in Birmingham, Mich.

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From Percentages TO ALGEBRA

Figure 1: Linear growth and compound percent.

Figure 2: Compound growth of downloads of an app.

Figure 3: Men’s and women’s sizes.

Figure 4: Monthly revenue.

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growth as in Figure 1. Figure 2 highlights the exponential nature of compound growth. Pie charts are useful when discussing the percentage of people who need different sized hoodies and contrasting men and women sizes as in Figure 3.

The scenario developed around monthly store sales addresses the misconception that a percentage increase followed by an equal percentage decrease results in no net change. The bar chart in Figure 4 demonstrates revenue fluctuations and seasonal trends better than a table.

The military ops scenario involves two types of training delivered in consecutive weeks. Each training module has a different passing rate. The captain and colonel discuss whether changing the order of training would increase the total percent who pass. It does not. One teacher pointed out this was the first time she had seen the commutative law in a meaningful context. We also demonstrate that the economics of training is sensitive to the sequence. It is better to place the training with the lower passing rate in the first week.

Math textbook examples almost always produce numbers that are integers. Real-world examples are not so neat. We made sure that our scenarios’ calculations would not produce integer results. When deciding on an order of hoodies, students need to translate these calculated non-integer values to an actual order of hoodies.

Several other examples also generate non-integer values that need to be converted to integers in the planning context. These examples stress an important aspect of how math is used. Mathematics is a tool for exploring the range of possibilities to make a decision or reach a conclusion.

In contrast, math textbooks present math as a tool for finding the one correct answer.

Mental Math and Discussion Opportunities When discussing our work, colleagues often chime in with comments about how kids today can’t calculate simple percentages in their heads.

To address this concern, each scenario is preceded by a section called Number Talks. We recommend teachers spend five to 10 minutes using these examples to do mental math with percentages before introducing the scenario.

One classic concern about math education is succinctly characterized by the following student question: Why is mathematics the only class in which the teacher is uninterested in my opinormstoday.informs.org

ion, and there is nothing to discuss except for the mathematical procedure? In contrast, our scenarios involve business operations and personal concerns that students understand and relate to. We have designed other scenarios around important topics such as high school dropouts, training for special military ops, homelessness among veterans, congressional redistricting and growth in the use of apps. All of these offer natural opportunities to expand the discussion. We also include at the end of each scenario a suggestion for a student project.

The Future I b e l i eve t h i s wo r k w i t h m i d d l e s c h o o l mathematics has enormous potential. Unlike our high school O.R. curriculum, middle school teachers will not need to learn new math skills nor will they need to justify the curriculum to decision-makers. They readily understand the mathematical concepts and can immediately incorporate our examples into their classrooms.

At a recent workshop, 80 percent of the teachers planned to use at least one activity within the next two months. The biggest challenge is a willingness to adopt a new style of teaching associated with scenario-based learning. ORMS Kenneth Chelst (kchelst@wayne.edu) is a professor of operations research in the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department at Wayne State University and co-founder of a collaboration, Applied Mathematics Practices for the 21st Century (http://www.appliedmathpractices.com/).

REFERENCES 1. Chelst, K., 2015, “Introducing Analytics to Adolescents,” OR/MS Today, Vol. 42, No. 4.

2. Chelst, K. and Edwards, T. G., 2012, “Innovative Education: Early O.R. Education: “Operations Research is aligned with the Common Core Revolution in K-12 Mathematics Education,” OR/MS Today, Vol. 39, No. 4.

3. Ozgün-Koca, S., Edwards, T. G., and Chelst, K. R., 2013, “Exercise Away the Big Mac: Ratios, Rates, and Proportions in Context,” Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 184-188.

4. Chelst, K. R., Özgün-Koca, S. A., and Edwards, T.G., 2014, “Rethinking ratios, rates and percentages,” Mathematics Teaching (GB), issue 240, pp. 26-29.

5. Özgün-Koca, S. A., Edwards, T. G. and Chelst, K. R., 2015, “Linking Lego and Algebra,” Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, Vol. 20, No. 7, pp. 400-405.

Prizes & Awards Deadlines

Each year INFORMS grants several prestigious institute-wide prizes and awards for meritorious achievement.

These prizes and awards celebrate wide ranging categories of achievement from teaching, writing, and practice to distinguished service to the institute and the profession and contributions to the welfare of society.

Case and Teaching Materials Competition Submission: August 26

Judith Liebman Award Nominations: August 25

Frederick W. Lanchester Prize Submission: June 15

Moving Spirit Award for Chapters Nominations: August 25

George B. Dantzig Dissertation Award Submission: June 30

Moving Spirit Award for Fora Nominations: August 25

George E. Kimball Medal Submission: July 31

Prize for the Teaching of the OR/MS Practice Nominations: June 30

George Nicholson Student Paper Competition Submission: June 15

Saul Gass Expository Writing Award Submission: July 1

INFORMS O.R. & Analytics Student Team Competition Register: September 30

Undergraduate Operations Research Prize Submission: June 15

John von Neumann Theory Prize Nominations: July 1

Volunteer Service Award Submission: June 30

https://www.informs.org/Recognizing-Excellence/INFORMS-Prizes

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IN N OVATIVE EDUCATION

Wargames illuminate cyber threat discovery

We Classroom seminar games provide a powerful analytic and educational toolset.

By Olivia Kay Hernandez, Theodore T. Allen and Douglas A. Samuelson

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developed two in-classroom seminar wargames to a n a l y ze a n d te a c h t h e p r o s p e c t i ve e f fe c t s of pr opose d cour ses of ac tion in r esponse to cyberattacks. These were part of a research effort for the Army Cyber Command and Second Army (ARCYBER / 2A), under an NSF grant. These quick and simple wargames illustrate well the advantages such games can provide.

Wargaming is making a comeback. Wargames produce innovative thinking, evaluation of information and the development of strategies [2], [6], [9], [12], [14], [18]. Because of this, two years ago Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work strongly urged Department of Defense components to use more wargaming in analysis [17]. From seminar games to advanced computer simulations and large-scale, highly structured exercises, wargaming is a vital tool that is proving applicable to myriad scenarios.

Playing wargames has many benefits, for both the participants and those who create the games. The players can develop new thought processes, be exposed to original ideas and concepts, and put their unique skills and expertise to work. Game creators can tailor the games to meet their specific needs and goals. Goals can range from specific, such as determining whether a battalion is robust enough to defeat an enemy in a specified scenario, to the very general, such as examining new techniques or innovative policies.Wargames can include forms of competition and assertiveness other than, or even instead of, direct military conflict (Cf. [13]). Wargames can teach players about many different aspects of a conflict.The back and forth of receiving information and making decisions is reflective of everyday life. Further, dealing with actuality and others with differing objectives allows wargames to produce realistic outcomes. In general, wargaming is both an organized and creative method from which all involved can benefit.

The setup of the wargame needs to reflect the research question and appropriate scope and level of detail. For our project, we created ormstoday.informs.org

two educational seminar-type cyber threat discovery games. Wargames played for discovery can have multiple goals, including “the devising, executing and testing of courses of action against an enemy, in order to explore some military problem or proposed future situation” [14].

These games have less rigor to allow exploration and novel outcomes.

Seminar-type games produce more qualitative findings, and generalized concepts have been determined and are reviewed in the results section of the games’ after action report [11].

The goal of these wargames was primarily to create educational and enjoyable games that expose Wargames produce innovative thinking, evaluation of information and the development of strategies. brigade-level personnel to cyber Image © Elena Duvernay | 123rf.com Image threats and explore how to build organizational resilience. These approximately one- side and outside users of the portal, and they might have hour long games build teamwork among players by contributed to the breach.The goal of the attack is not providing awareness of how interconnected a cyber known, but action must be taken to protect the portal. of the security breach can be. They also provide benefits One player is an external hacker, and the other by allowing the players to understand and relate to players are all involved in determining how to manage cyber experts, and assist in dispelling the concept the breach.“Portal Breach” helps players to understand was to that cyber security knowledge is limited to certain how distrust and possible humiliation can occur in a fields or disciplines. cyber security investigation. It also brings to light time sensitivity concerns. Further, the players are attempting Let the Games Begin to determine the hacker’s incentives and limits.

The games are based on real-world events in the Both games follow the same format and rules. news (not directly related to military incidents, al- Phase Zero is preparation. First, the participants are asthough the implications are clear enough to be insigned their roles (airline CEO, military cyber expert, that formative) [4], [5], [7], [8], [15], [16]. The first game etc.). Based on the assignments, the players are given is called “Slapdash vs. LateSpunk.” In this game, two specific information, such as an expert who performs expose different commercial airlines are competing for mildefensive cyber activities and forensic investigations. itary contract business. A lieutenant colonel (LTC) After the initial information is provided to establish must get troops to both New York and Afghanistan. the roles, all players receive more tailored information The reasons for the travel are classified. The airline during Phase One. Examples include knowledge that that the military currently uses (Slapdash) has expe- the core server has been infected or that the FBI has to rienced a cyber security breach. That same airline contacted you regarding IP addresses for your portal. has also had various issues in the past. A different air- Players are then free to deliberate for approximately 17 line (LateSpunk) might be able to sway the military minutes. All participants are free to speak to others or commander to its side and capture new business. break out into separate groups.

Players must work to assess business vulnerabilCertain players, designated as the principals, and ities, determine priorities and analyze the circumprovide statements after the deliberations have constances. Leadership and various departments come cluded. Each principal is given around three minutes explore how together to investigate both the nature and scope of to speak. While other players may have rebuttals or the breach, and to agree upon the most appropriate questions during this time, the focus is on the printo build response. Ransomware is also involved, and the playcipals’ statements. Following the statements there is ers must decide upon the most suitable action. a die roll to choose one of the possible actualities “Portal Breach” is the second game.A military uniof the cyber security incident: Perhaps the system versity has experienced a cyberattack.There are both inbackup is easily restored with no data loss, or maybe

The goal

wargames

create educational games

brigade-level personnel cyber threats

organizational resilience.

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Wargames vs.

CYBER THREATS

P - DOD Contact

You are in charge of monitoring breaches at U.S. military institutions of higher learning. You participate in system audits and training exercises. You are aware that viruses and limited breaches occur with regularity, but true sensitive breaches are considered rare.

information conveniently fits onto standard 8.5” by 11” sheets of paper.

You are in charge of students at a military academy conducting graduate research with strategic partners. Almost all of the work is unclassified and on a computer system. Several contractors work with systems under your purview, and there might be guidelines for handling sensitive information that you and they do not know.

Findings from the Games Slapdash vs. LateSpunk provided many thought-provoking results.

P - Wing First, the CEO of LateSpunk did Commander not use the breach of Slapdash effectively in order to gain the You run several portals that students and partners use. The portal military’s business. The CEO did identity credentials are shared with the employment cac not get a commitment from the (“passport”) identifiers, and there is some sensitive information on LTC that LateSpunk would be System the portals. You have recommended multifactor authentication, its airline going forward. Also, the Administrator but it has not yet been implemented due to time and expense. fear of not having sufficient information to make decisions greatly You train students and assist with offensive and defensive cyber hindered LateSpunk’s CEO. security operations. You are not aware of classified data on a local When the actuality was P - Cyber portal but are aware that some base systems are not up to DOD shared with the group, which in Security Expert standards and might be required to reach those standards. this case was a $1 million breach, Figure 1: Sample of information provided to wargame players. the ability of Slapdash to bargain with the LTC became quite inside and outside users were involved with the limited. However, the CEO of Slapdash missed an breach. The outcome and facts selected via the die opportunity to “muddy the waters.” Slapdash could roll are shared with all participants. have used findings from its own cyber experts about Phase Two begins with additional personalized the severity and impact of the incident. information provided to the players. Again, players Portal Breach had different outcomes from have time (17 minutes) to deliberate and discuss Slapdash vs. LateSpunk, as all players were the newly shared information as well as respond essentially working together to minimize the to the ground truth. Afterwards, the principals hacker’s impact. The wing commander had provide their closing statements (three minutes ultimate author ity to shut down the portal. each) to the group. The result is a consensus of However, there was a lack of organization the outcome, such as the military deciding which and leadership to quickly confirm if this was airline they will hire. Figure 1 offers an illustration necessary. Due to passively waiting for additional of the information given to participants. The discussion, the opportunity was lost to thwart the hacker by shutting down the portal and preventing additional losses.

The hacker was very careful initially to prevent being discovered. However, the hacker’s presence was already known by the portal admin and cyber expert. Near the end of the game the hacker realized this and determined that being cautious no longer provided any benefit.

Another interesting result from Portal Breach involved the actions of the inside and outside users. Even though (due to the die roll) they both contributed to the breach, they were very adamant that the portal not be shut down. The inside and outside users both required information Figure 2: Slapdash vs. LateSpunk topic analysis.

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from the portal to complete their tasks and pushed to keep the portal accessible even at the risk of the hacker gaining additional data.

We used two rapporteurs for these games. They took ample notes based on the conversations of the participants, including their concerns and reasoning for their decisions. We then processed the notes through a text analysis program to create topic groupings. Figure 2 shows the top 10 topics from Slapdash vs. LateSpunk, while Figure 3 shows the same information Figure 3: Portal Breach topic analysis. for Portal Breach. Stemming using the Porter algorithm trims words so that the plural or other forms/tenses of the same word can curity concepts. Also, we can create data or software be appropriately clustered using Latent Dirichlet for performing cyber monitoring, including alerts and Allocation and directed clustering [1], [3], [10]. detailed forensic analysis, within the games.

These wargames have produced multiple Summary and Conclusions findings regarding cyber security breaches, from Based on feedback from the participants, we met the the need for leadership to dealing with selfish goal of creating enjoyable games that provide a real- motives. The participants gained knowledge of istic presentation of cyber security breaches. A con- cyber incidents based on scenarios from actual troversial critique of the games was that not enough breaches. They also demonstrated the necessity of information was provided to the participants in teamwork to meet cyber challenges. Wargaming order to make fully vetted decisions. However, other should continue its current upward trajectory and players stated that the lack of information was very be recognized as a tool which provides valuable realistic and an accurate representation of cyber seinsights to both players and creators. ORMS curity incidents. This observation can be extended Olivia Kay Hernandez is an entrepreneur and a Ph.D. to decision-making at large. student at Ohio State University. Her academic interests lie at the intersection of human factors engineering, We presented our preliminary report and assessoperations research and applied statistics with cyber ment of these games at the Military Operations Resecurity applications. She holds a M.S. in ISE from Ohio search Society (MORS) Symposium in June. Our State University. audience, including a number of noted experts in Theodore T. Allen is an associate professor of integrated cybersecurity and wargaming, offered various sugsystem engineering at Ohio State University. He is the gestions for improvement but found the games credpresident-elect of the INFORMS Social Media Analytics ible and beneficial.

Section and a fellow of ASQ. His research is supported by If others are planning to play both games, NSF and ARCYBER. we recommended to begin with Slapdash vs.

Douglas A. Samuelson is president and chief scientist LateSpunk.The starting point of this game was more of InfoLogix, Inc., a small R&D and consulting company in obvious to the players as there were two clearly deAnnandale, Va. A longtime contributing editor of OR/MS Today, he holds a D.Sc. in operations research from George fined teams working with the military. Portal Breach Washington University. allows for more collaboration between different orThe authors thank the Army TRADOC Analysis Center, ganizational levels. This game can foster substantial ARCYBER and NSF grant 1409214 to Ohio State teamwork or harmful distrust, which allows it to University for supporting this work. Allen was the principal showcase the interplay of differing personalities and investigator; Hernandez, a graduate student of Allen’s, viewpoints. was the project lead; Samuelson served as a consultant.

Overall, our study indicates that these games are useful tools in exposing players to cyber security inREFERENCES cidents. Future enhancements to the games involve For a complete list of references, see http://bit.ly/2vfIS0j. incorporating feedback and more advanced cyber seAugust 2017

Olivia Kay Hernandez

Theodore T. Allen

Douglas A. Samuelson

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IN N OVATIVE EDUCATION

MobiDoc initiative in Tunisia

T A mechanism for doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows to conduct research in an industrial or service company.

By Atidel B. Hadj-Alouane 50 | ORMS Today

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unisia is a small North African country perhaps best known today as the birthplace of the “Arab Spring.” Tunisia, a rising democracy, is becoming a start-up hub in the North African region. The country faces various challenges, mainly economic and political issues, but what interests me as a college professor is the higher educational system that has not changed much since the Arab Spring and the associated events of 2011.

To give some background, I had the chance to see two different sides of the world when I was a completing my education. I completed my engineering degree in Tunis and received my Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in the United States. Needless to say, I have noticed many differences between both countries’ educational systems. One major difference is that Tunisian education is free.This leads to the vast majority of citizens being able to attend universities, but it also poses numerous problems to the system as a whole such as the lack of funding.

For example, consider the case of Ph.D. students in Tunisia.The lack of funding causes major hurdles for students seeking to pursue a Ph.D. because they are generally unable to acquire the appropriate amount of funding needed to do research. As a result, many students ormstoday.informs.org

end up seeking funds on their own, which is not an easy task.

In other cases, students join the industry as full-time employees, hindering their research and academic commitments. However, an on-going initiative is successfully helping these students accomplish their research goals by mitigating most financial problems.

Mobility Mechanism for Doctoral Students This initiative is called MobiDoc, and it is one of the flagship Tanneries & Megisseries of Maghreb (TMM) is the largest tannery company in Africa and a supplier of activities of the PASRI program high-quality finished leather to some of the biggest fashion houses in the world.

(Project to Support the Research Source: TMM and Innovation System). The program is funded by the European Union market shares or in some situations, better What makes and came as a response to the weak economic societal or environmental performances. the performance of production systems in Tunisia, which What makes the MobiDoc initiative attractive is partly due to the lack of partnership between is the win-win relationship established between the industry and the university, at the research and the student and the company. For the student, innovation levels. it provides a comfortable financial situation and The purpose of MobiDoc is to set up a mobil- favorable conditions for success. Through the ity mechanism for doctoral students and post-docdirect involvement of the company, the student toral fellows to conduct research in an industrial or gets the chance to grasp real-world constraints is the service company. The program provides funding to and issues and to better understand the difficulties candidates in the form of a stipend for a period of of implementing realistic solutions to problems 36 months, with a minimum contribution of 20 in the industry. This also strengthens the student’s percent from the company. In Tunisia, the Mobiprofessional skills, and at the same time validates Doc framework is managed by the ANPR (National his or her work academically within the scientific Agency for Promoting Scientific Research), which community. For the company, it provides further is a public organization created in 2008 and placed development and innovation, which is often between under the Ministry of Higher Education and Scienlacking in countries like Tunisia. tific Research.

There is a third winner in this experience: the the Each MobiDoc instance involves a tripartite research laboratory and the university as a whole. ag reement binding the school (where the Through MobiDoc, research labs are now able to candidate enrolls), the ANPR and a recipient attract outstanding candidates, particularly engineers, organization (the company). It describes the who otherwise will turn to full-time jobs in priand the research project, subject of the agreement, work vate companies to thrive financially, even if they are conditions, modalities of supervision, etc. In deeply inclined to pursue a research career. Research particular, for doctoral students, there are two labs have better opportunities to develop what is advisors: a scientific advisor and a professional called research-actions projects that better respond advisor. The scientific advisor, a faculty member to real needs and at the same time yield high-quality of the school, plays the same customary role of publications. student guidance to ensure the scientific quality of the work and to encourage dissemination of MobiDoc Experiences at TMM important findings mainly through publications. To illustrate the MobiDoc initiative, I would like to The professional advisor, on the other hand, share one of the ongoing MobiDoc experiences that monitors the work quality in ter ms of its is conducted by my student Mohamed Frihat, at an immediate socio-economic impact on the industrial company from the leather tanning sector: company, such as increased productivity, sales, Tanneries & Megisseries of Maghreb (TMM), the

MobiDoc initiative attractive

win-win relationship established

student

company.

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MobiDoc INITIATIVE

The student

biggest tannery company in Africa and a supplier of high-quality finished leather to some of the biggest fashion houses in the world. Mohamed is an industrial engineer who was working full time in TMM as an assistant production manager before he decided to enroll as Ph.D. candidate at the National Engineering School of Tunis (ENIT) and to become a member of the laboratory for Optimization and Analysis of Service and Industrial Systems (OASIS).

His thesis deals with resource allocation and production scheduling in the complex manufacturing environment of TMM that is characterized by various aspects such as: • human resources constraints: employees’ availabilities, skills and labor legislations; • technological constraints: time lags between operations and set-up times; • random events: machine failures, absenteeism and quality nonconformance; and • multiple criteria: makespan, tardiness and labor cost.

developed a flexible

scheduling approach where groups of interchangeable

tasks are sequenced instead of

single ones.

52 | ORMS Today

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At the beginning, the student considered the integrated deterministic problem of employee timetabling and hybrid job-shop scheduling.

After presenting and formulating the problem as a mixed integer program, with the objective being the total labor cost, a resolution method based on decomposition and cut generation was developed. In this approach, the master problem is the employee timetabling, and the slave problem consists of task scheduling. These sub-problems were solved using ILOG MIP and constraint programming, respectively.

Given the complexity of the integrated problem, the implementation of this approach and its applicability turned out to be very difficult.

In addition, the assumptions that were made, particularly the deterministic context, resulted in planning and decisions that were quite inapplicable.

However, working with the above models allowed us to better understand the problem and to pinpoint key issues such as the emphasis on flexibility and robustness when developing the decision-making tool.

In the course of this work, there was a slight shift in the objectives. At the beginning of the project, the company placed more importance on labor cost. However, as the demand increased, it became more important to meet customer deadlines and to optimize the scheduling makespan. In order to adjust to this new context, in addition to capturing various uncertainty sources and perturbations, new August 2017

research directions were sought which led to the following actions: • inverting the sub-problems so that scheduling becomes master with more than one criteria and timetabling becomes the slave; • modeling various types of uncertainties and perturbation using fuzzy logic; • proposing different temporal robustness measures; • developing robust constructive heuristics and metaheuristics integrating more than one criteria; and • proposing a reactive scheduling approach that integrates operators’ availabilities and skills.

In addition to the above, the student developed a flexible scheduling approach where groups of interchangeable tasks are sequenced instead of single ones. This is particularly suitable for the company’s manufacturing system, where the execution order of certain tasks is hard to fix in advance. Overall, the student noticed that reactive approaches are easier to implement and present more flexibility in running the production system whether in dealing with uncertainties due to human errors, quality nonconformance or with the variable processing times due to the variability of the quality of raw material.

Advantages and Limitations Based on the above thesis and other experiences in service companies (one in a private clinic and another in a consulting firm), I believe that MobiDoc offers two advantages, in addition to the financial support for the student: Resource availability: Being a partner, the company is compelled to provide all necessary means to ensure steady progress and the success of the research work. For example, for Mohamed’s thesis,TMM has invested in the development of a real-time production tracking system in order to collect the most accurate data and monitor the system performance while implementing the solutions proposed by Mohamed. For this purpose, one engineer was hired and five projects with specific tasks were proposed to senior engineering students at ENIT. Teamwork: This is a very fundamental aspect when working in a company. In order to guarantee fast and adequate results, the student has to exchange ideas and discuss several proposals with decision-makers and employees at various levels, such as the floor manager, technicians, operators, interns, etc. This has the advantage of viewing ormstoday.informs.org

a MobiDoc project may have to adjust its objectives as well. Indeed, any change in the company policy such as an increase or a decrease of its capital or market share may influence the research orientation of a thesis.

In conclusion, it is important to note that a MobiDoc thesis is subject to the same academic requirements as any regular thesis in terms of credits, publications and scientific quality. Therefore, employment for MobiDoc graduates is expected to be mostly in academia, which has been the case in Tunisia for a long time. This is due to the fact that R&D is almost nonexistent because the Tunisian economic landscape is mainly shaped by small-to-medium-sized companies.

However, with the MobiDoc initiative, we may expect to see more Ph.D. students in the near future holding R&D positions in industrial and service companies. ORMS Atidel B. Hadj-Alouane (atidel.ahadj@enit.rnu.tn) is a professor of industrial engineering and director of the OASIS Laboratory at the National Engineering School of Tunis, University of Tunis El Manar, Tunis, Tunisia.

http://meetings.informs.org/analytics2018

Atidel B. Hadj-Alouane

Exhibit & Sponsorship information is now available.

and evaluating issues from different angles and thus correctly setting the priorities.

In contrast, some constraints and limitations were raised by some students who are conducting MobiDoc theses, such as: The need for short-term solutions: Although there is a certain understanding of the nature of research projects, companies tend to expect tangible results very early on during the span of the thesis period. This will sometimes push the student to juggle between methodological approaches and easily implementable solutions until he or she finds the right compromise. Sometimes, this process hinders the academic work progress, especially when students are required by their school to publish their work in conferences and journals, which in turn requires original and high-quality research. It seems that there is a challenge in reaching a common ground where high-quality research fits in both the company’s and the university’s standards.

Occasional change of research objectives: As the company adjusts to its socio-economic environment,

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2017 INFORMS ANNUAL MEETING OCTOBER 22–25 | HOUSTON, TEXAS Join us in Houston, the healthcare and energy center of the U.S., for a unique opportunity to connect and network with 6,000 of your colleagues who compose the INFORMS community.

Listen to intriguing plenaries, panels, and select sessions of interest from the 100s of tracks.

RESERVE YOUR HOTEL ROOM EARLY WHILE SPACE AVAILABLE. http://meetings2.informs.org/wordpress/houston2017/hotel/

PLENARY SPEAKERS

• Richard Tapia, Rice University • Robert Bixby, Gurobi • Robert Phillips, Uber, Director of Data Science

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS • • • • • •

Victoria Jordan, Emory University Cassandra McZeal, ExxonMobil Nancy Currie-Gregg, Texas A&M (formerly with NASA) E. Andrew Boyd, University of Houston Richard Baraniuk, Rice University Tuomas Sandholm, Carnegie Mellon University

IMPORTANT DATES September 1 - Poster Submission Deadline September 1 - All Presenters Must Register September 21 - Hotel Cut-Off Deadline September 29 - Early Registration Deadline

REGISTER TODAY

http://meetings.informs.org/houston2017 IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Presenters not registered

by September 1 will be removed from the conference program.

http://meetings.informs.org/nashville2016

ormstoday.informs.org

news

Inside News 56

Winter Simulation Conference

57

New journal: Stochastic Systems

58-59 President-elect position statements

Houston, we solve problems

60

In Memoriam: Harvey M. Wagner

61

Director of Education, Industry Outreach

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Meetings

2017 INFORMS Annual Meeting prepares for launch in ‘Space City’ The 2017 INFORMS Annual Meeting will be held in Houston, Texas, on Oct. 22-25.

Houston is world renowned for its economy based in aeronautics, energy, manufacturing and transportation. Houston’s energy industry is recognized worldwide for its renewable energy sources, including wind and solar power. Houston is the most diverse city in Texas and has a large and growing international community. Because it is the home of the NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center and its strong ties to the aeronautic industry, it has earned the nickname “Space City.” With a little of something for everyone, Houston lends itself as the perfect location for the next INFORMS Annual Meeting.

The meeting will take place at the George R. Brown Convention Center and the Hilton Americas, with all technical sessions taking place at the Convention Center. INFORMS also has group rates at the Marriott Marquis Houston and the DoubleTree by Hilton Houston Downtown.

Only a limited number of rooms are blocked and they will sell out quick, so please make your reservations as soon as possible.

Pre-Conference Workshops This year INFORMS is introducing a new pre-conference workshop in conjunction with the Annual Meeting. The Academic Leadership Workshop will take place on Oct. 21, the day before the start of the Annual Meeting. The all-day event is designed for faculty of all ranks with an interest in every level of academic leadership. The workshop provides information that can be useful for becoming efficient and effective leaders.

Panel speakers are highly visible world-class current and former academic administrators.

Pa r t i c i p a n t s w i l l h a v e a n opportunity to ask questions and network with peers in academic leadership positions. All participants must be nominated by a department head/chair or college dean.

Another pre-conference workshop that is being introduced this year is the INFORMS Workshop on Data Science. Sponsored by the INFORMS College on Artificial Intelligence, this workshop is a premier research event dedicated to developing novel data science theories, algorithms and methods to solve challenging and practical problems that benefit business and society at large. The conference invites innovative data science research contributions that address business and societal challenges from the lens of statistical learning, data mining, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

The 2017 INFORMS Annual Meeting will light up Houston Contributions on novel methods in October.

Image © Antonio Balaguer Soler | 123rf.com may be motivated by insightful obwill be held on Oct. 22. Subdivisions meetservations on the shortcomings of state-of-the art data science methods in addressing practical ings will be held predominantly on Oct. 23 challenges, or may propose entirely novel data in the evening. On Oct. 24, INFORMS will science problems. Research contributions on host the General Reception at Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros. theoretical and methodological foundations of Another unique networking opportunity data science, such as optimization for machine learning and new algorithms for data mining, for student members is the Coffee with a Member program. This wonderful program are also welcome. connects INFORMS students with some Networking of INFORMS most enthusiastic members Along with the abundance of educa- for 15-minute impromptu meetings and tional opportunities, the conference will some sage INFORMS advice. We know the offer several opportunities for connecting Annual Meeting can be a bit overwhelming and networking. The Welcome Reception and hope these casual meetings will make Annual Meeting, continued on p. 56

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new s Annual Meeting, continued from p. 55

students more comfortable, knowledgeable and enthusiastic about both the meeting and INFORMS. Space is limited and open to firsttime attendees/participants only. Students may enroll for this program when they register for the meeting.

Career Center A huge benefit of the INFORMS Annual Meeting for employers and job seekers is the INFORMS Career Center. The Career Center and activities provide employers

with the opportunity to meet and collect resumes from numerous job seekers in a short period of time, early in the meeting, and to schedule and set-up private interviews later in the meeting. Career Center activities are free for all individual meeting registrants. Job seekers should register in the INFORMS Career Center so employers will know you are attending. Be sure to post your resume or anonymous career profile that will lead employers to you. Job seekers should review Career Center Resources prior to attending

the job fair to make sure your resume and interviewing skills are in tip-top shape.

We hope you will attend this unique opportunity to connect and network with more than 5,000 INFORMS members, students, prospective employees, and academic and industry experts. We look forward to seeing you in Houston! ORMS For more information on any of the events listed in this article or other activities at the Annual Meeting, visit www.meetings.informs. org/houston2017.

WSC turns 50: simulation everywhere!

By Ernest H. Page The Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) was first held in 1967 as the Conference on the Applications of Simulation Using GPSS. As we celebrate its 50th anniversary this year, we are proud that the conference is widely regarded today as the premier international forum for disseminating recent advances in the field of dynamic systems modeling and simulation. In addition to a broadly scoped, high-quality technical program, WSC is the annual meeting place for simulation researchers, practitioners and vendors spanning a wide array of disciplines and working across industry, government, military, service and academic sectors. This year’s conference will be held from Dec. 3-6 in Las Vegas at the Red Rock Resort.

A hallmark of WSC is the diversity of its program, and this year’s program chair, Gabriel Wainer, has organized a fantastic collection of tracks. In recognition of the 50th anniversary milestone, we will have a formidable “History of Simulation” track. But we will also be intently looking to the next 50 years in our “Future of Simulation” track.

Of course, many of the traditional tracks will return for 2017, including academically focused tracks: Analysis Methodology, Modeling Methodology, Simulation Optimization, Agent-Based Simulation, Education and Hybrid Simulation, as well as applied tracks such as Aviation Modeling and Simulation, Healthcare Applications, Logistics, Supply Chain Management and Transportation, Manufacturing Applications, Modeling and Analysis of Semiconductor 56 | ORMS Today

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Manufacturing (MASM), Military Applications and Homeland Security, Project Management, Construction, Cyber Physical Systems and Intelligent, Adaptive and Autonomous Systems. The program also offers a great mix of introductory and advanced tutorials, case studies, a Ph.D. colloquium, poster sessions and vendor presentations. Whatever your interests, the WSC 2017 program will have something for you.

We have a great lineup of keynote speakers for WSC 2017.

Barry Nelson, Northwestern University, will set the stage for the conference by asking the question “WSC 2067 - What Are the Chances?” in the opening keynote.

Our military keynote speaker is Douglas Hodson, Air Force Institute of Technology, and our MASM keynote will be given by Stéphane Dauzère-Pérès, École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de SaintÉtienne. The 2017 “Titans of Simulation,” a distinguished speaker lunchtime series, will feature professors Robert G. Sargent and Bernard P. Zeigler.

The Winter Simulation Conference is jointly sponsored by the American Statistical Association (ASA), Arbeitsgemeinschaft Simulation (ASIM), Association for Computing Machinery: Special Interest Group on Simulation (ACM/SIGSIM), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers: Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society (IEEE/SMC), Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences: Simulation Society

DECEMBER 3–6, 2017

(INFORMS-SIM), Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Society for Modeling and Simulation International (SCS), and operates under the direction of the conference Board of Directors, whose volunteer members represent these sponsoring organizations and ensure the continuity, quality and traditions of operation that make WSC a truly unique conference.

From the program to the extensive collection of exhibitors and vendors, to the meetings of many professional societies and user groups, to the various social gatherings, to the beautiful Red Rock Resort, and the myriad extracurricular options in the Las Vegas area, WSC 2017 promises to be a fantastic event. We hope you will plan on joining us!

For more information, visit http:// wintersim.org. ORMS Ernest H. Page is general chair of WSC 2017.

ormstoday.informs.org

ormstoday.informs.org

Stochastic Systems: The newest INFORMS journal

By Shane Henderson

After more than six years being published through a cooperative agreement between the INFORMS Applied Probability Society and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Stochastic Systems is becoming an INFORMS journal. The first issue published under the INFORMS banner will come out later this year.

Stochastic Systems is the flagship journal of the INFORMS Applied Probability Society.

It seeks to publish high-quality papers that substantively contribute to the modeling, analysis and control of stochastic systems.

A paper’s contribution may lie in the formulation of new mathematical models, in the development of new mathematical or computational methods, in the innovative application of existing methods, or in the opening of new application domains.

Relative to application-focused journals, Stochastic Systems publishes papers in which applied probability plays a significant, not just supporting, role. Relative to other applied probability outlets, Stochastic Systems focuses exclusively on operations research content. As Stochastic Systems transitions to the INFORMS umbrella, my hope is that the content will broaden considerably beyond queueing theory, which has represented the majority of the work published there to date. While queueing theory remains an important part of the work relevant to Stochastic Systems and we are delighted to receive high-quality submissions in that sphere, there are many other exciting developments in the theory and applications of applied probability in operations research that are also relevant.

For example, papers that explore the ties between applied probability and optimization, or with machine learning, or with game theory are relevant. (These are just a few examples.) We are also interested in papers in many application areas, including, but not limited to, service operations, healthcare, logistics and transportation, communications networks (including the Internet), computer systems, finance and risk management, manufacturing operations and supply chains, market and mechanism design, revenue

Editor-in-chief introduces Stochastic Systems and explains why you should consider publishing your work there. management and pricing, the sharing economy, social networks and cloud computing.

The editorial board provides direct evidence of our breadth of interests, and if you don’t see someone in an area that covers your paper, then why not contact me anyway? I’ll provide you with a quick decision about the relevance of your paper to the journal.

Why should you publish your work in Stochastic Systems?

1. All papers published in Stochastic Systems are open access, and this will continue to be the case under the INFORMS banner. Moreover, there are no submission fees or page charges. You can submit your papers at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ ssy/. Published papers are available at http:// www.i-journals.org/ssy/. Once the transition to INFORMS is complete, the journal home will be http://pubsonline.informs.org/journal/ stsy – stay tuned!

2. Stochastic Systems publishes work of broad interest to the operations research community. Papers that might otherwise go to, e.g., Management Science or Manufacturing & Service Operations Management might be relevant for Stochastic Systems if they include a significant applied probability component, and the applied probability need not be relegated to an appendix.

3. Stochastic Systems aims to return reviews to authors within three months of submission and to publish articles online within two months of acceptance. I can assure you that I am proactive in keeping to this timetable.

Starting in 2018, issues will appear quarterly.

4. Stochastic Systems aims to publish a broad variety of operations research content, as evidenced by the partial list of relevant applications mentioned above. Indeed, one of our goals in publishing the journal is to strengthen the ties between the Applied Probability Society and the other communities of INFORMS. 5. Stochastic Systems is publishing, and will continue to publish, work of the highest quality. This quality is in evidence in its editorial board, which includes five Fellows

of INFORMS (Jim Dai, Paul Glasserman, Peter Glynn, John Tsitsiklis and Ruth Williams), three Fellows of the IMS (Dai, Glynn and Williams), three Fellows of the IEEE (Bruce Hajek, R. Srikant and Tsitsiklis) and four members of the National Academy of Engineering (Glynn, Hajek, Frank Kelly and Tsitsiklis). See http://www.i-journals.org/ssy/ editors.php for the full editorial board.

Some Example Papers In order to buttress my earlier point about the breadth of research published in Stochastic Systems, I selected a few papers that emphasize this aspect of Stochastic Systems (and for this reason only). I do not give full references because the papers are easily found from the website above.

• • •

•

•

•

•

•

d’Aspremont, A., 2011, “Subsampling algorithms for semidefinite programming” Tsitsiklis, J.N. and K. Xu, 2012, “On the power of (even a little) resource pooling.”

Wang, M. and D.P. Bertsekas, 2013, “On the convergence of simulation-based iterative methods for solving singular linear systems” Juditsky, A. and Y. Nesterov, 2014, “Deterministic and stochastic primal-dual subgradient algorithms for uniformly convex minimization” Armony, M., S. Israelit, A. Mandelbaum, Y. N. Marmor, Y. Tseytlin and G. B. Yom-Tov, 2015, “On patient flow in hospitals: A databased queueing-science perspective” Ata, B. and M. Akan, 2015, “On bidprice controls for network revenue management” Braverman, A., J. G. Dai and J. Feng, 2016, “Stein’s method for steady-state diffusion approximations: An introduction through the Erlang-A and Erlang-C models” Aldous, D., 2017, “Waves in a spatial queue”

I’m looking forward to receiving your submission. ORMS Shane Henderson is the editor-in-chief of Stochastic Systems.

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new s President-elect position statement:

Ramayya Krishnan

“I am enormously optimistic about the unique capabilities of our INFORMS community. In a world being transformed by technological change, we need to build even deeper partnerships – partnerships that facilitate foundational and applied activities in MS/OR/analytics – between academia, industry and government to gain greater recognition for the contributions we make and can make.”

Matching consumers to drivers in ridesharing systems. Anti-money laundering networks and counter-terror operations.

Smart public safety and policing. Therapeutic optimization for precision medicine. What is the common thread that links these contemporary examples together? It is operations research and management science!

Each of these topics is at the frontier of the convergence of social, cyber, physical and biological systems that are having a transformational impact on every sector of the economy. Hand in hand with these developments is the evolution of autonomous decision systems or artificial intelligence. From the design and analysis of these social cyber-physical systems and autonomous decision systems through foundational algorithmic and modeling work, and from understanding the consequences of increasing digitization on business and society to examining its disruption of labor markets and the future of work, I believe the INFORMS community is uniquely positioned to tackle these challenges and solve these problems.

However, to gain recognition for the important contributions we make and can make, we need even deeper partnerships between academia, industry and government.

Such partnerships must be “closed loop” and supportive of a model that links problems to both foundational and applied research in MS/OR/ analytics. It has to go beyond development to deployment. In other words, INFORMS needs to encourage partnerships that facilitate RD&D (research, development and deployment).

What are the objectives of these partnerships and how might INFORMS achieve them?

1. Make the INFORMS community aware of a constantly evolving and relevant set of new problems.The INFORMS Roundtable and its industry partners are an important resource to help us realize the “closed loop” model of problemsresearch-development-and-deployment.

Imagine having an emerging problems/

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frontiers track or pre-conference workshop at INFORMS to introduce the community to new problems. Having the editors of our 14 journals attend and jumpstart research to address these problems through creation of special sections or issues would further engage the academic community around these problems and make it attractive to junior faculty and Ph.D. students.

2. Maintain leadership in the public sphere in the rapidly evolving field of analytics. INFORMS has done good work by positioning itself in the world of “analytics.”

Specific initiatives include CAP®, the Business Analytics Conference and the UPS Prize. To grow the mindshare in industry and gain seats at the table, INFORMS could hold hackathons/ challenges on important societal problems independently or in partnership with a consortia of industry/government partners. Imagine an INFORMS-sponsored challenge on healthcare costs or on networks and counterterror.

3. Increase visibility of important contributions to public policy through an annual INFORMS Public Policy Workshop.

INFORMS could host an annual workshop that showcases policy-relevant work done by its members. Efforts could be made to ensure that the attendees include members of OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy), assistant directors and division directors from NSF and NIH, and senior executives from HUD, DOE, DOT, DHS, HHS and DOD. The objective would be to build greater awareness to take on topical and high-impact societal problems and for the community to actively engage in shaping funding opportunities.

4. Sharpen use by INFORMS of its marketing platforms and channels including the web, YouTube and its social channels to influence external stakeholders and generate more value to members.

The INFORMS community creates a great deal of high-quality content. Examples include Edelman Award and Wagner Prize finalist papers and videos, as well as the UPS Smith Prize

videos. How could these assets be curated to yield material relevant to external stakeholders such as reporters? Similarly, how could these assets create value to INFORMS members to support their research, teaching and outreach to grow the pipeline of high school students and undergraduates interested in MS/OR/analytics?

These objectives stem from my experience in addressing similar challenges at Carnegie Mellon and at INFORMS. In 1998, I founded an interdisciplinary master’s degree program that combined analytics and information technology. During my deanship, I doubled the size of this top-ranked program and built deep partnerships with industry and government to support education and research. In 2016, the Heinz College won the INFORMS UPS George D. Smith Prize for educational excellence in analytics. My tenure as chair of the Computing Society and president of the Information Systems Society taught me how to work with members to realize shared goals. If elected as your president-elect, I will work with you and my colleagues on the board to realize the objectives I have outlined. ORMS Ramayya Krishnan is the dean and W. W. Cooper and Ruth F. Cooper Professor of Management Science and Information Systems at the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy and in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is an INFORMS Fellow and a Distinguished Fellow of the INFORMS Information Systems Society. He is a former member of the Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum. He is the recipient of the Y. Nayuduamma Award 2016 for his contributions to business technology and telecommunications and was awarded the distinguished alumnus award of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 2017.

The Heinz College won the UPS George D. Smith Prize for educational excellence in 2016.

It is the only educational institution that is home to both the von Neumann Theory Prize and the UPS George D. Smith Prize from INFORMS.

ormstoday.informs.org

ormstoday.informs.org

President-elect position statement:

Greg Parlier

Our multi-disciplinary profession can achieve powerful results with consequential impacts. I believe we are obligated to bring the full power of our unique profession to bear on these challenges of our times.

I am both honored and humbled to be nominated for president-elect of INFORMS and gratefully thank the nomination committee for their expression of confidence. Seventyseven years ago marks the beginning of our profession during the early years of World War II. The United States had not yet declared war, the attack on Pearl Harbor was more than a year away, France had just fallen, and Britain was standing alone during that “bright and terrible” summer of 1940. The fate of Western Civilization was at stake prompting Prime Minister Churchill to describe the Battle of Britain as our “darkest hour.”

We know how the incredible story concluded five years later, and the many ways our new and unique profession would contribute to victory in World War II. This history should be a source of inspiration and strength for us. INFORMS and its predecessor organizations, ORSA and TIMS, have undertaken many important initiatives since then. Especially valuable has been the History and Traditions (H&T) Committee, which can help us understand and appreciate our own remarkable history. If elected, I will enthusiastically support and extend ongoing projects, and I will encourage and reinforce our H&T Committee in its important efforts.

We are fortunate to have a very capable, experienced and responsive administrative staff, expertly guided by INFORMS Executive Director Melissa Moore. Major financial and business operations indicators are now trending in positive directions; membership and conference attendance are strong and increasing; the INFORMS information infrastructure has been reengineered; new initiatives continue to be thoughtfully generated and vigorously implemented.

If elected, I will not mess with success.

INFORMS has identified four strategic goals oriented on future success. Three of these focus on our professional contributions to decision-makers, organizations and society at

large. The fourth is internally focused on the value proposition to our members. These are both appropriate and worthy goals, but in their current form I believe they lack supporting “campaign plans.”

First, our professional development value proposition is crucial to member retention and sustaining long-term success. We must reinforce, refine and expand those efforts that are value-added. Just as we now mine data for patterns and trends, we should “mine” our history for enduring principles, and to better understand our purpose in our own time.

Indeed, our vision must be informed by where we have come from, remind us of our unique heritage, and assist us now in advancing and responsibly wielding the analytical horsepower that defines us. If elected, I will encourage ongoing professional development programs and new initiatives to reinforce our value proposition across the full range of member interests.

We can assist decision-makers specifically, and organizations more generally, by developing and implementing assessment frameworks, including the analytical maturity model, to help them realize their goals in cost-effective ways. Many of our government organizations are complex, highly bureaucratic enterprise systems that seem resistant to change. I believe (from my own military experience, I know) we can assist greatly with much needed improvements by fully harnessing the power of management innovation, advanced analytics, and operations research using “engines for innovation” to guide transformational change toward improved performance. If elected, I will encourage and lead such endeavors on behalf of INFORMS. F i n a l l y, a t b o t h d o m e s t i c a n d global society levels, we are confronted with enduring international security challenges, continuing humanitarian crises, disturbing socio-cultural patterns and trends, and both environmental and economic distress.

These perplexing issues will not be solved by technology innovation alone, but must be addressed through social ingenuity. In this domain, our multi-disciplinary profession is uniquely consequential in impact. I believe we are obligated to bring the power of our profession to bear on these challenges of our times – we know what it takes to make things better. Periodic crises may seem threatening and grave, but they cannot be more formidable than others faced in our past, as Churchill confronted 77 years ago. In less than 25 years, we will celebrate the centennial of our profession.

Perhaps a retrospective then will characterize our contributions now, in the face of such daunting challenges, as “our finest hour.” If elected, I will “serve as an ambassador for and promoter of the profession, the institute and its members.” With passion and conviction, it would be my honor to do so for you. ORMS Greg Parlier, a retired U.S. Army colonel, is an adjunct professor of operations research and president, GH Parlier Consulting. A West Point graduate, he was later an assistant and associate professor of O.R at the academy.

A combat veteran with five deployments and service in more than 20 countries, he was a paratroop commander in the 82nd Airborne Division, air-ground battle staff officer, joint operations planner and Army strategist. With more than 33 years of service, he was the Army’s senior, most experienced O.R. officer.

Elected to INFORMS leadership positions at section, chapter and society levels, Parlier is a past president of the Military Applications Society, co-edits an O.R. text series and is program chair for the annual International Conferences on O.R. and Enterprise Systems.

An Army War College graduate and National Defense Fellow at MIT, Parlier holds advanced degrees from the Naval Postgraduate School, Wesleyan and Georgetown. Honors include the MORS Tisdale Award, Army O.R. Analyst of the Year, MAS Koopman Prize and INFORMS Edelman Laureate.

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new s In Memoriam

Harvey M. Wagner (1931-2017) Harvey M. Wagner, a renowned researcher, teacher and consultant whose seminal 1969 book “Principles of Operations Research with Applications to Management Decisions” introduced tens of thousands of business and engineering school grad students to the OR/MS field, died July 23 at the age of 85.

Professor Wagner shared a long and often-honored association with INFORMS and its predecessors, the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA) and The Institute of Management Sciences (TIMS). Professor served as president of TIMS (1973-74), and the three organizations showered him with honors and accolades, including the Lanchester Prize (1969) for “Principles of Operations Research,” the Edelman Award (1988) for achievement in operations research and management science, and the Saul Gass Expository Writing Award for setting an exemplary standard of exposition. Professor Wagner was named to the inaugural class of INFORMS Fellows in 2002.

At the time of his death, Professor Wagner was a faculty member in Operations Research and Management Science at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, a position he held for more than 40 years.

Born in San Francisco on Nov. 20, 1931, Wagner moved to Los Angeles at age 10. He resisted the temptation to study at the University of California at Los Angeles with his schoolmates and instead attended Stanford University. He was a prize-winning debater whose parents hoped that he would pursue law. After taking a probability course taught by Kenneth J. Arrow, Wagner developed a particular interest in economics and statistics. He developed a close student-mentor relationship with Arrow, who supervised his thesis on Monte Carlo simulation and helped him get a job at the RAND Corporation.

Wagner spent the summer of 1953 at RAND, where he interned with Murray Geisler’s Logistics Department. While waiting on his security clearance, Wagner received a 60 | ORMS Today

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copy of George E. Kimball and Phillip Morse’s 1951 book, “Methods of Operations Research,” from Alexander Mood, RAND’s mathematics head. That summer, Wagner briefly met George B. Dantzig, who later taught him the simplex method of linear programming. The following year, Wagner used linear programming to solve dynamic Leontief models. It was also at RAND where he was introduced to computer science via an IBM Card-Programmed Electronic Calculator.

By 1954, Wagner knew he wanted to earn a Ph.D. in something other than statistics. He spent a year studying economics under Richard Stone at King’s College, Cambridge. Wagner returned to RAND in 1955 and was encouraged by Arrow to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He spent two years at MIT but accepted a position at Stanford prior to receiving a degree. Wagner eventually earned a Ph.D. in 1960, incorporating his continued RAND and Stanford research activities.

In 1960, Wagner joined the McKinsey & Company management firm as an O.R. consultant to its San Francisco office. He befriended David B. Hertz, his New York counterpart and editor of the “Publications in Operations Research” book series. At McKinsey, Wagner made multiple realizations about the implementation of O.R. models and the importance of transparency. His group’s work was recognized in 1984 when he and his colleagues were awarded the Franz Edelman Award.

Wagner left California to join the Department of Administrative Sciences at Yale University, joining his longtime friend Robert Fetter and the economist Herbert Scarf. While at Yale, Professor Wagner and several of his students made developments in inventory and production control, linear programming and bounded variables, as well as production scheduling. In 1976, Professor Wagner moved to the University of North Carolina to serve as the business school’s dean.

A prolific writer, over the course of his career Professor Wagner published five books and 60 refereed articles on operations

research. One of his papers, “Dynamic Version of the Lot Sizing Problem” (1958), was selected as one of the most influential papers published in the INFORMS journal Management Science and remains one of its most cited papers. As for Professor Wagner’s pioneering book that earned the Lanchester Prize, the prize committee’s selection was unanimous on the first ballot, according to Shaler Stidham in his chapter in “Profiles in Operations Research: Pioneers and Innovators” (Assad and Gass, eds., 2011).

The citation stated: “Outstanding in several of the criteria on which judgment is based, this is a monumental and consistently excellent effort that should contribute much, both now and in the future, to the understanding, exposition and use of operations research’s principles as well as its techniques.

The committee is pleased to award the prize to this work, and congratulates Professor Wagner on a job well done.”

Wrote Stidham: “In his acceptance remarks, Wagner pointed out that, in 1964, when he began the book, it was clear that operations research would remain a vital field of activity, contributing lasting values to our social system. Yet, at that time, no book served as a complete up-to-date introduction to the field. In his opinion, what was needed was a text that would command academic respectability by and for operations research practitioners and theorists. His central goal was to write a book that would concentrate on important fundamentals, influence future managers and, perhaps, stimulate young scholars to choose operations research as their professional specialty.” ORMS Sources: INFORMS, Herald Sun (Durham, N.C.), “Profiles in Operations Research” (Assad and Gass) ormstoday.informs.org

ormstoday.informs.org

INFORMS names Inniss director of Education and Industry Outreach INFORMS announced that Dr. Tasha R. Inniss has joined the INFORMS staff as the inaugural director of Education and Industry Outreach. In this role, she will contribute her extensive mathematics and education background to the overall vision, strategic direction and implementation of all education- and practice (industry)-related activities and outreach.

Prior to joining INFORMS, Inniss served as the acting deputy division director of the Division of Human Resource Development in the Directorate of Education and Human Resources at the National Science Foundation. Concurrent with that, she was a tenured associate professor of mathematics at Spelman College in Atlanta.

Inniss graduated summa cum laude from Xavier University of Louisiana with a bachelor of science degree in mathematics. She earned a master’s degree in applied mathematics from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of Maryland, College Park. She was one of the first three African-American women to receive a doctorate in mathematics from UMD. Her first faculty position after completing her doctorate was as a Clare Boothe Luce Professor of Mathematics at Trinity College (now Trinity Washington University) in Washington, D.C.

Meetings INFORMS Annual & International Meetings Oct. 22-25, 2017 INFORMS Annual Meeting

George R. Brown Convention Center & Hilton Americas, Houston Chair: William Klimack, Chevron http://meetings.informs.org/houston2017/

2018 April 15-17, 2018 INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics & Operations Research Marriott Waterfront Hotel, Baltimore Chair: Jack Kloeber, Kromite, LLC http://meetings.informs.org/analytics2018/

June 17-20, 2018 INFORMS International Conference

Taipei International Convention Center, Taipei, Taiwan Chair: Grace Lin, Asia University http://meetings2.informs.org/2018international/

Dr. Tasha R. Inniss

As an applied mathematician, her research interests are in the areas of data mining/data science, operations research and applied statistics. In addition to Inniss’ research interests, she also has a passion for teaching mathematics and encouraging undergraduate students to pursue degrees in STEM disciplines. When she was a junior faculty member at Spelman College, Inniss received a Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching because of her innovative teaching techniques and dedication to helping students to see how mathematics is applied in the real world.

“I am most excited about joining the dynamic INFORMS staff and working collaboratively to develop innovative integrated (education and practice) initiatives that help to support the goals and priorities of INFORMS,” Inniss says. ORMS

H T T P : / / W W W. A N A LY T I C S - M A G A Z I N E . O R G

Nov. 4-7, 2018 INFORMS Annual Meeting

Phoenix Convention Center & Sheraton Phoenix Hotel, Phoenix Chair: Young-Jun Son, University of Arizona

INFORMS Community Meetings 2017 Dec. 3-6 Winter Simulation Conference

Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa, Las Vegas Chair: Ernest H. Page, MITRE www.wintersim.org

2018 March 23-25 INFORMS Optimization Society Conference

University of Colorado, Denver Chair: Stephen C. Billups, University of Colorado-Denver http://orwe.mines.edu/conference/info.html

May 23-25 14th INFORMS Telecommunications Conference University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany Chair: Stefan Voss https://www.bwl.uni-hamburg.de/en/iwi/forschung/ konferenzen/informs2018.html

June 14-16 INFORMS Marketing Science Conference Temple University, Philadelphia Chair: Xueming Luo, Temple University http://connect.informs.org/isms/conferences

DRIVING BETTER BUSINESS DECISIONS

JU LY / AUG UST 2017

Check out the July/August 2017 Issue of Analytics

Shedding light on

Now Available at: www.analytics-magazine.org

Dec. 9-12 Winter Simulation Conference

The Swedish Exhibition & Congress Center Gothenburg, Sweden Chair: Bjorn Johansson, Chalmers University of Technology

Go to www.informs.org/Conf for a searchable INFORMS Conference Calendar.

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CLASSIFIEDS

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION | View Classifieds Online at: http://www.orms-today.org

SEEKING SENIOR LECTURER IN BUSINESS ANALYTICS Position Overview: The MIT Sloan School of Management is seeking candidates for a Senior Lecturer in Business Analytics. This individual will be responsible for designing and teaching a Proseminar Class in Business Analytics as well as the Analytics Capstone Class, overseen by the Master of Business Analytics (MBAn) Program.

• The Proseminar is a 3-unit course for graduate students interested in obtaining practical knowledge in the field of analytics. The Analytics Proseminar is a required course as part of the newly launched Business Analytics Certificate. The size of this course is anticipated to be greater than 50 students per year.

• The Analytics Capstone course is a 24-unit course which spans 7 months of the year and is designed to give MBAn students exposure to real-life data science problems in the industry. Students work with real companies on difficult analytics projects in teams of 2. The project includes a mandatory 10-week summer internships onsite at the host companies. The size of this course is 30-45 students per year.

The MBAn program is MIT's newest and most competitive specialized master’s program. The Senior Lecturer will provide strategic and operational leadership to ensure the success of the Analytics Certificate and Analytics Capstone Projects and work closely with faculty to develop a meaningful curriculum, capstone project sourcing and industry partner development strategy.

This position will play a key role in enhancing our students' academic experience by collaborating with current faculty on action learning courses and through mentoring student teams on company sponsored projects. Candidate will be also be responsible for initiating interactions between students and business analytics industry participants.

The Senior Lecturer will receive supervision from the Faculty Director (Professor Dimitris Bertsimas) and the Program Director (Michelle Li) for the Master of Business Analytics Program.

Qualifications: Master's degree required; a proven record with minimum of five years' experience in the analytics industry, preferably in data science, mathematics, operations research, and/or engineering.

To Apply: Please submit your CV, a cover letter and two references using this website: https://sloanfacultysearches.mit.edu/MBAn

THE HONG KONG UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Faculty Positions Department of Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management

The Department of Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management invites applications for substantiation-track faculty positions in the area of (i) Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics, (ii) Healthcare and Sports Analytics, (iii) Financial Engineering and Fintech, and (iv) Demand and Supply Analytics.

Applicants must have a PhD degree in Industrial Engineering, Operations Research, or a closely related area. The appointee is expected to demonstrate strong potential for effective teaching and promising research in the respective fields.

Appointments at all ranks (Assistant Professor/ Associate Professor / Professor) will be considered. Salary is highly competitive and will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. Fringe benefits include annual leave, medical and dental benefits. Housing benefits will be provided where applicable. Appointment at Professor rank will be on substantive basis. Initial appointment for Assistant .

Professor/Associate Professor will normally be made on a 3-year contract. A gratuity will be payable upon successful completion of contract. Strong candidates applying for Associate Professor position may also be considered for appointment on substantive terms.

Applications with a full C.V.; statement of research and teaching; transcript of graduate work; copies of 2 research publications; names, emails and addresses of at least three referees, should be directed to the Search and Appointment Committee, Department of Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong [email : ielm@ust.hk]. Review of applications will start immediately and continue until the positions are filled.

More information about the Department can be found at http://www.ielm.ust.hk.

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FACULTY POSITION # 051614 IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT SMU’s Cox School of Business invites applications for a full-time Clinical faculty position, at the level of Clinical Professor in Information Technology and Operations Management (ITOM). The ideal candidate would possess strong quantitative/analytical skills and a Ph.D. in information systems or a related field. The ITOM Department offers courses in the School’s BBA, MBA, MS and EMBA programs. The position begins Fall 2018.

The Cox School is a nationally ranked business school located in Dallas, Texas, the premier business center in the US Southwest. The ITOM department has a well-respected research faculty and excellent relations with the corporate and business community, providing a unique and exciting environment for high-quality research. The School offers a collegial working environment, generous faculty support and outstanding facilities. The Dallas Fort-Worth (DFW) Metroplex offers a thriving business community in one of the fastest-growing regions of the country, a relatively low cost of living and myriad cultural and recreational activities and resources. Information about the School can be found at http://www.smu.edu/cox.

Priority will be given to applications received by October 1, 2017, although the search committee will continue to accept applications until the position is filled. The ITOM Faculty will be conducting initial interviews at the INFORMS National Meeting and the Conference on Information Systems and Technology in Houston, Texas in October 2017 Applications must be submitted electronically to https://apply.interfolio.com/43370.

SMU will not discriminate in any program or activity on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, or gender identity and expression. The Executive Director for Access and Equity/Title IX Coordinator is designated to handle inquiries regarding nondiscrimination policies and may be reached at the Perkins Administration Building, Room 204, 6425 Boaz Lane, Dallas, TX 75205, 214-768-3601, accessequity@smu.edu.

SMU is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

ormstoday.informs.org

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION | View Classifieds Online at: http://www.orms-today.org

Northwestern University | Kellogg School of Management Evanston, Illinois Faculty Positions in Operations Management Applications are invited for faculty positions in Operations Management. The search is open to all ranks. A Ph.D. in Operations Management, Business, Engineering or related field must be in hand or expected by employment start date.

Research potential, recommendations, and teaching capabilities will be the primary selection criteria. Candidates in all research areas of operations management will be considered, but they must have a thorough knowledge of operations management theory and practice. Successful applicants will be expected to do innovative research in operations management, participate in the school’s Ph.D. program, and teach required and elective MBA courses.

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOSTER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS FACULTY POSITION IN OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT The Information Systems and Operations Management (ISOM) Department in the University of Washington Foster School of Business invites applications for a full-time (100% FTE) tenure eligible faculty position at the Assistant (0116) Professor level in the Operations Management area. This is a nine month, indefinite length appointment.

The Operations Management area is part of the ISOM Department that offers courses in Information Systems, Operations Management, and Quantitative Methods in the Foster School's undergraduate, MBA (including Executive MBA), MSIS, MSCM and Ph.D. programs. University of Washington faculty engage in teaching, research and service. Duties include teaching at all levels and research leading to publication in leading academic journals. Our faculty enjoys close ties with the local business community as well as other departments at the University of Washington, one of the leading public universities in the nation.

Applications should be submitted at https://www4.kellogg.northwestern.edu/recruiting/default.aspx?dept=OPRS For full consideration, please submit a curriculum vitae, three letters of reference, and copies of publications or work in progress no later than November 8, 2017.

Department representatives will attend the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Houston, TX, October 22–25, 2017. Candidates attending the conference are strongly encouraged to submit a curriculum vitae, a research abstract, and any supporting materials no later than October 11, 2017.

Applicants must either possess a Ph.D. or foreign equivalent in a relevant field by the date of appointment or the applicant will be hired in an acting title for a maximum of one year. Applicants interested in applying should submit a detailed curriculum vita, research papers and publications, information about teaching experience and performance, and the names of at least 3 references at https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/9261.

Northwestern University is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Employer. of all protected classes including veterans and individuals with disabilities. Women and minority candidates are encouraged to apply. Hiring is contingent upon eligibility to work in the United States.

To receive full consideration, applications must be received prior to October 15, 2017; any application received after October 15 may not be considered. For further inquiries, contact the search committee chair, Professor Ted Klastorin at tedk@u.washington.edu Department representatives will attend the INFORMS conference in Houston, Texas in October and will interview a shortlist of applicants during the meeting.

Interviewees will be notified prior to the INFORMS meeting.

The University of Washington is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, among other things, race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, status as protected veterans, or status as qualified individuals with disabilities.

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FACULTY POSITIONS #051186 AND #49923 IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT SMU’s Cox School of Business invites applications for full-time faculty positions at the level of Assistant Professor in Information Technology and Operations Management (ITOM). The ideal candidates would possess strong quantitative/analytical skills and a Ph.D. in information systems or a related field. The ITOM Department offers courses in the School’s BBA, MBA, MS and EMBA programs. The positions begin in Fall 2018.

The Cox School is a nationally ranked business school located in Dallas, Texas, the premier business center in the US Southwest. The ITOM department has a well-respected research faculty and excellent relations with the corporate and business community, providing a unique and exciting environment for high-quality research. The School offers a collegial working environment, generous faculty support and outstanding facilities. The Dallas Fort-Worth (DFW) Metroplex offers a thriving business community in one of the fastest-growing regions of the country, a relatively low cost of living and myriad cultural and recreational activities and resources. Information about the School can be found at http://www.smu.edu/cox.

Priority will be given to applications received by October 1, 2017, although the search committee will continue to accept applications until the positions are filled. The ITOM Faculty will be conducting initial interviews at the INFORMS National Meeting and the Conference on Information Systems and Technology in Houston, Texas in October 2017. Applications must be submitted electronically to http://apply.interfolio.com/43369.

SMU will not discriminate in any program or activity on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, or gender identity and expression. The Executive Director for Access and Equity/Title IX Coordinator is designated to handle inquiries regarding nondiscrimination policies and may be reached at the Perkins Administration Building, Room 204, 6425 Boaz Lane, Dallas, TX 75205, 214-768-3601, accessequity@smu.edu.

SMU is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

E-mail & Web Page

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AIMMS

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Frontline Systems, Inc.

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GAMS Development Corp.

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Gurobi Optimization

713.87.9341 info@gurobi.com www.gurobi.com

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LINDO Systems, Inc.

info@lindo.com www.lindo.com

25

University of Michigan - Tauber Institute

gricej@umich.edu 734.647.2220 www.tauber.umich.edu

August 2017

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ORMS Today

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ORacle

Doug Samuelson

samuelsondoug@yahoo.com

The parable of regulations The conversation at the summer poolside party had turned, naturally enough, to the recent vote by the U.S. Senate not to repeal the Affordable Care Act. A couple of people expressed disappointment that the Republicans had been unable to reach any agreement, even with control of the presidency and both houses of Congress. Others were angry at President Trump or at John McCain. Still others, a majority of the group, were relieved that the current system, flawed or not, had survived, at least if the alternative had not been thought through carefully.

Jill protested, “But at least they’re trying to reduce regulations. I run a small business.You wouldn’t believe how many requirements we have to meet.The health insurance we’re required to carry now is one of the most expensive ones. And I know fishermen on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where I used to live, who have lost their livelihood because of the limits on some kinds of fishing in Chesapeake Bay. Less regulation is better, don’t you think?”

At this Joe, an O.R. analyst and one of the older people present, gave her a wry little smile. “Actually, no,” he replied.

“Let me tell you a story. In the early 1980s, I was at a conference, organized by the editors of The Washington Monthly, trying to lay out an agenda counter to the Reagan philosophy of ‘smaller government is always better.’ One of the featured speakers was the CEO of People Express – anyone remember them? They were a small airline, one of the ones that sprang up in the late 1970s and early 1980s after deregulation. They had a hub in Newark and were competing very well against the Eastern Airlines – remember t h e m ? – shuttle ser vice between Washington, D.C., and New York, also between those cities and Boston.

“This CEO explained how their lowfares for no-frills service approach was 64 | ORMS Today

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August 2017

winning the competition. I was young and naïve, working for the federal government, and after his talk I asked him how he thought the air traffic controllers’ strike had affected his company’s business.

“He exclaimed, ‘Oh, it’s awful. The restrictions on flights have hemmed us in on all sides. We can’t wait for those limits to come off.’ ” Joe went on, “So I asked, ‘But what if your real competitive advantage isn’t price, but time? Right now, because of the restrictions, flying through Newark has the least delay getting into and out of New York. When those limits come off, isn’t there a chance you’ll be in a lot of trouble?’

“The CEO was polite, but dismissive,” Joe continued. “He was sure of his appreciation of the situation. And when the controls did come off, six or eight months later, his competitors started introducing deep discounts and other incentives to lure customers onto their shuttle services.

In less than a year, People Express was out of business. They had actually been benefiting from the regulatory restrictions they were complaining about.”

“Isolated case,” Jill objected. “Obviously there would always be a few exceptions, but in general ...”

“I don’t think it’s all that unusual,” Joe responded. “You know how economists say that markets are myopic, that they see only the short-term profit and not the long-term consequences? Well, business managements are myopic in a different way, not because they’re not smart, but because they’re in no position to see some of the more distant features of the situation. What they see is what regulations prevent them from doing. They almost always can’t see what regulations prevent their competitors from doing to them. Of course, that’s partly because they also often can’t see what their competitors would want to do. And in the longer term, too

much unrestr icted competition can hurt the whole market.”

Fred, who had worked for the Federal Aviation Administration, chimed in.

“You’re right, Joe. And ironically, it was the airlines who pushed for government safety regulations and then for operations limits on the few most congested airports.

They needed government safety inspections and rules to give people enough confidence to fly. And when congestion led to planes circling for an hour or more waiting to land, they decided it would be better to have limits than to keep burning fuel and crew time.”

“Back to your health insurance example,” Joe added. “No doubt the current law has raised costs for small businesses.

But hasn’t it also made many more small businesses possible? People with sick family members could afford to quit their jobs and start companies, because they no longer had to worry about not being able to get any coverage at all without the employment.

“And then,” Joe went on, “there’s another benefit – one that Obama, to my lasting surprise and disappointment, never mentioned. If we ever get hit by a major outbreak of infectious disease, either natural or man-made, the difference between a close call and a catastrophe is about a week. Having everyone who starts showing symptoms go immediately to a health care provider who’s in the national reporting system is critical. That meant that universal access to low-cost health care is neither a right nor a privilege, it’s a national security imperative. And you don’t get there without a government mandate!”

Art, who had been quiet, spoke up. “And without that ban on fishing in the bay, we would have run out of rockfish,” he said. “Then no fisherman could have made a living from them.

So, yes, I’d have to say that some regulations are good! Now it’s up to us analytics types to find the right balance, wouldn’t you say?” ORMS Doug Samuelson (samuelsondoug@yahoo. com) is president and chief scientist of InfoLogix, Inc., in Annandale, Va.

ormstoday.informs.org

Disney is the business segment of The Walt Disney Company that brings stories and characters to life through innovative and engaging physical products and digital experiences across more than 100 categories, from toys and t-shirts, to apps, books and console games.

DCPI COMPRISES FOUR MAIN LINES OF BUSINESS: LICENSING

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RETAIL

GAMES & APPS

CONTENT

The combined segment is home to world-class teams of app and game developers, licensing and retail experts, a leading retail business (Disney Store), artists and storytellers, and technologists who inspire imaginations around the world.

Meet Davey | Lead Product Manager with Disney Social Games WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO DISNEY AND WHY DCPI FROM A DATA STANDPOINT?

I’ve always been excited about the power of data and being able to answer questions that were once unanswerable.

What excited me about Disney was the opportunity to answer these questions, but connect them to brands and characters and stories that so many people grew up loving. I grew up a huge Disney fan and the ability to use my skill set within the framework of all of these stories and heart was really exciting to me. I am excited to be part of it.

WHAT IS UNIQUE ABOUT DISNEY DATA THAT SURPRISED YOU AS A DATA PROFESSIONAL?

Disney is always story. Story and heart are the foundation of everything we do. This presents a unique set of challenges, which make it really fun.

For example, in working on Star Wars™: Commander, keeping the Star Wars™ story and universe intact is paramount. We may look at data and find trends we want to act on, but then we have to marry that to the Star Wars™ universe. You can’t propose a solution that will break the laws of how that galaxy works. You always have to think creatively about how to use the solutions you found through data and bring them to life in a way that both satisfies the need but feels authentic.

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O B J E C T - O R I E N T E D A P P L I C AT I O N PROGRAMMING INTERFACES The object-oriented GAMS APIs allow the smooth integration of GAMS into other programming environments by providing appropriate classes for the interaction with GAMS. The GAMSDatabase class provides in-memory representation of data for convenient exchange of input data and model results.

The GAMSJob class executes GAMSmodels.

The GAMSOptions class customizes GAMS models through the API. The GAMSModelinstance class solves sequences of closely related model instances in the most efficient way.

Available for .NET, Java, Python, and (new) C++ (open source) For more information, technical documentation, and examples see www.gams.com/latest/docs/apis

WHAT CUSTOMERS THINK ABOUT THE APIs

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GAMS API is a very good way to encapsulate GAMS models inside programming languages. This API allows to have a dynamic link between the GAMS model and our applications. It is very robust and efficient. Moreover it includes a new feature that allows to solve several close instances of a same problem very fast. With this feature, we implemented very efficient sensitivity analysis of our models.

Dimitri Tomanos, Modeller analyst, GDF-Suez

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With the GAMS .NET API we were able to implement some complex recursive MIP-based algorithms we could not easily express in the GAMS language itself. One advantage of the GAMS API was that we could reuse large parts of database access and data manipulation steps implemented in GAMS. Erwin Kalvelagen, Amsterdam

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Optimization Modeling Group

High-level algebraic modeling system which incorporates all major commercial and academic state-of-the-art solvers

sales@gams.com www.gams.com Phone: (202) 342 0180