Jeppesen wins INFORMS Prize

Unlike the Edelman Award, which each year honors a specific example of operations research practice, the INFORMS Prize salutes organizations for “sustained integration of operations research.” The INFORMS Prize Committee looks for a variety of applications of O.R. in a single organization that provides the organization with a competitive advantage through high-impact work. The committee is particularly impressed with organizations that “repeatedly apply O.R. in pioneering, varied, novel and lasting ways.”

In awarding the 2010 INFORMS Prize to Jeppesen (a Boeing company), INFORMS took note of the world-class capabilities and contributions of the Jeppesen operations research department. Committee Chair Jeff Camm presented the 2010 INFORMS Prize at the awards gala held in conjunction with the INFORMS Practice Conference in Orlando, Fla.

“Jeppesen uses O.R. to address both the strategic and tactical problems we encounter on a continual basis,” says Mark Van Tine, Jeppesen president and CEO, who was on hand to accept the award along with Stefan Karish and Marilyn Aragon. “INFORMS has bestowed a significant honor upon us. It independently confirms the impact O.R. has at Jeppesen, while highlighting our commitment to leveraging O.R. for the benefit of our customers and the success of our company. We simply could not do much of the highly sophisticated work we do without this fundamental capability.”

Jeppesen helps pilots, mariners and others get safely and efficiently to their destinations by providing them with mission-critical information, including flight manuals that contain navigational and other safety-of-flight information. Worldwide, more than 650 airlines and 1 million pilots, 6,500 commercial ships and 1.5 million boaters and some of the largest railroad operators in Europe rely on Jeppesen.

INFORMS first took notice of Jeppesen in 2000, when judges for the Institute’s Franz Edelman Award competition gave the prize to Jeppesen after a turning point in the company’s history. In 1997, Jeppesen saw its service deteriorate when a growing line of over 100,000 aviation charts overwhelmed its production system. The company responded by establishing a small O.R. group to analyze its production problems. In just two short years, Jeppesen was able to eliminate late delivery of product orders, reducing costs by nearly $3 million annually.

Since then, the expanding O.R. department has consistently applied a wide variety of O.R. techniques throughout the enterprise to improve operations and to support decision-making related to resource utilization, inventory optimization, capital investments, market strategy, product development and pricing.

Today, more than 75 professionals with an O.R. background are helping Jeppesen apply analytics to make better decisions, build better product, and offer better services.

Past recipients of the INFORMS Prize include Intel, UPS, HP, IBM, Procter & Gamble and GE Research.