Edelman laureate, analytics advocate retires from UPS

Jack Levis, an INFORMS Fellow and head of the O.R. group at UPS that won the 2016 Edelman Award, recently announced his retirement following a 40-plus-year career with the multinational package delivery, logistics and supply chain management company.

As the senior director of process management at UPS, Levis was responsible for creating and executing a vision for operations planning, control and monitoring while leading the Operations Research and Advanced Analytics groups.

Levis’ O.R. team helped deliver the Edelman by developing ORION (On-Road Integrated Optimization and Navigation), a 10-year-long project that revolutionized the company’s pickup and delivery operations. ORION uses advanced fleet telematics and complex algorithms to crunch thousands of pages of code and multimillion address data points to provide UPS drivers with optimized delivery routes, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in savings per year related to less miles driven and less fuel consumed, along with a significant reduction in CO2 emissions.

In addition to the Fellow and Edelman recognition, Levis is a recipient of the Kimball Medal from INFORMS for distinguished service to the Institute and the profession, as well as the President’s Award for important contributions to the welfare of society at the local, national or global level.

A former INFORMS VP of Practice and advocate for the Certified Analytics Professional (CAP) program, Levis played an instrumental role in encouraging INFORMS to catch, embrace and brand the analytics wave a decade ago, which established the Institute as a global leader in the field.