Edelman Award, continuing education, IAA finalists

INFORMS recently announced six finalists representing a diverse collection of applied analytics and advanced operations research projects that will compete for the 2015 Franz Edelman Award in a series of judged presentations at the INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics & Operations Research in Huntington Beach, Calif., in April.

Widely considered the “Super Bowl” of operations research, as well as INFORMS’ highest organizational honor, the Edelman acknowledges the best application of high-end analytics. The winner will be announced at an evening Edelman Gala held in conjunction with the conference.

The finalists and their presentations include:

• IBM for “Predictive Cloud Computing with Big Data: Professional Golf and Tennis Forecasting”
• Ingram Micro for “End-to-End Business Analytics and Optimization in Ingram Micro’s Two-Tier Distribution Business”
• LMI/Defense Logistics Agency for “Peak and Next Gen: Effective Inventory Control for Items with Infrequent or Frequent, Highly Variable Demand”
• Saudi Arabia Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs for “A Pilgrim Scheduling Approach to Increase Public Safety during Hajj”
• Syngenta for “Good Growth through Advanced Analytics”
• U.S. Army/Sandia National Laboratories for “The Capability Portfolio Analysis Tool (CPAT): A Fleet Management and Decision Analysis Tool”

Now in its 44th year, the Franz Edelman Prize competition honors outstanding examples of analytics and operations research projects that transform companies, entire industries and people’s lives. Using innovative advanced analytics methods, the nominated teams were instrumental in helping their respective institutes make better decisions, providing a disciplined way to which management can improve organizational performance in a wide variety of situations and across both public and private organizations.

For more information, click here.

2015 schedule of continuing ed analytics courses

INFORMS’ continuing education program is designed specifically for those in the field of analytics and operations research. INFORMS, the world’s largest organization for advanced analytics professionals, produces and disseminates data analytics and operations research information, training courses, certification, and best-in-class resources for our members and the industry at large.

Four upcoming intensive hands-on courses provide real take-away value. You will leave these courses with the skills, tools and methods that you can implement immediately in your work. Included are two of the newest courses: Introduction to Monte Carlo and Discrete- Event Simulation and Foundations of Modern Predictive Analytics. Following are the dates and locations for the 2015 February through May courses:

Essential Practice Skills for Analytics Professionals, Feb. 26-27, San Jose, Calif.

Learn how to integrate and apply your analytical skills to real-world problem-solving for businesses and other organizations. This course provides approaches that you can apply immediately to a wide variety of settings, whether within your own organization or for an external client.

Data Exploration & Visualization, March 19-20, Dallas

Hands-on training that focuses on the critical steps in the process of analyzing data: accessing and extracting data, cleaning and preparing data, exploring and visualizing data. This course uses several of the most popular software tools intensively, and provides an overview of the range of available software options.

Foundations of Modern Predictive Analytics, April 15-16, Huntington Beach, Calif.

Learn data mining techniques and tools that will allow you to make the link between business needs and your technical skills. This course gives you hands-on practice in handling real data types, real business problems and practical methods for delivering business-useful results.

Introduction to Monte Carlo and Discrete-Event Simulation, May 28-29, Washington, D.C.

Identify real-world problem types appropriate for simulation, and develop skills and intuition for applying Monte Carlo and discrete-event simulation techniques. Via hands-on interactive sessions, you will investigate the use of Monte Carlo simulation in decision-making and the use of discrete-event simulation to solve mathematically intractable problems in stochastic modeling.

Don’t miss out on these courses. For detailed course information on all INFORMS courses and to register, visit www.informs.org/continuinged or contact Thedra White at [email protected] or 443-757-3570.

Innovative Applications in Analytics Award finalists

The Analytics Section of INFORMS has named two finalists for its Innovative Applications in Analytics (IAA) Award. The Section’s flagship prize, the IAA recognizes creative and unique developments, applications or combinations of analytical techniques used in practice.

The two finalists, chosen by a panel of judges following a two-month verification process, will present their work at the INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research in Huntington Beach, Calif., in April 2015, where the winner will be announced.

The two finalists include:

• “Simulation Approach for Aircraft Spare Engines & Engine Part Planning,” Jose A. Ramirez-Hernandez, Steven Oakley, Mei Zhang, Alejandro Scalise, American Airlines
• “Intelligent Surgical Scheduling System,” Narges Hosseini, Kalyan Pasupathy, Yariv Marmor, Thomas Rohleder, Jeanne Huddleston, Paul Huddleston, Mayo Clinic Rochester

For more about the competition, click here.