SEEN ELSEWHERE BARRIERS TO ANALYTICS ADOPTION
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Amongst the findings from a survey of 297 UK SMEs undertaken by Source for Consulting and Advanced Business Solutions are a number of key factors which may create barriers to implementing an analytics solution. The top 5 listed were: 1. No clear owner or champion for analytics 2. Inability to step back from day-today operations 3. Lack of awareness about what is possible 4. Insufficient in-house skills to implement and manage analytics 5. Concerns about IT spend required to support approach Simon Fowler, Managing Director, Advanced Business Solutions (Commercial Division), says, “Analytics technology has made significant strides in recent times and can help businesses to determine what is going to happen in the future and make more profitable decisions in the present. “Businesses leaders who fail to embrace analytics technology are likely to be left behind by their competitors. For the best results, the software should be implemented throughout an organisation instead of being isolated to a particular department in order to make a highly visible and meaningful impact. “To overcome resistance it’s also vital to articulate what benefits the technology will provide and how these will be measured. If senior executives are more engaged and clearly understand the value of analytics, they are more likely to commit to investing.”
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IMPACT © THE OR SOCIETY
The report can be accessed at http:// www.advancedcomputersoftware. com/abs/news/analytics-technologymassively-under-used-in-supply-chainoperations-says-advanced.php FÜR ELISE AND OTHER BAGATELLES
Apparently, the problem of finding an optimal fingering, which indicates the finger that should play each note in a piece, is a combinatorial optimization problem. Who would have known it!? In “A variable neighborhood search algorithm to generate piano fingerings for polyphonic sheet music” published in International Transactions in Operational Research (DOI: 10.1111/ itor.12211) Matteo Balliauw, Dorien Herremans, Daniel Palhazi Cuervo and Kenneth Sörensen develop a variable neighbourhood search algorithm to generate piano fingerings for complex polyphonic music. They take into account the biomechanical properties of the pianist’s hand in order to generate a fingering that is user-specific and as easy to play as possible. The results of computational experiments show that the algorithm generates good fingerings that are very similar to those published in sheet music books.
ANALYTICS: DON’T FORGET THE HUMAN ELEMENT
Chris Mazzei, global chief analytics officer (CAO) and global analytics Center of Excellence (COE) leader at Ernst & Young, believes that “all companies will need to have analytics as a core competency in order for business decisions to be informed by data. End users of the analytics will enhance their decision-making with the help of analytics. But this cannot happen without recognizing that the consumption of analytics is as important as the production”. He comes to this conclusion in an article published in Analytics-Magazine.org, as a result of a report which can be accessed at http://www.forbes.com/ forbesinsights/ey_data_analytics_2015/ index.html. “Now is the time to ask if your investment in producing data-driven insights is delivering a competitive advantage. If not, ask yourself if your organization is effectively consuming analytics.” HOW MANY DENTISTS DOES SRI LANKA NEED?
Southampton researcher Sally Brailsford and her PhD student Dileep De Silva from Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Health have developed an analytical model to inform government planning for provision of state-funded dental care and the future university intake of dental students. The model represents supply and demand for dental-care services. The supply-side component uses system dynamics to represent the career progression of dentists from recruitment and training at the University Dental School, looking at different career paths through