June 21, 2023 in INFORMS Prizes & Awards
2023 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference and Edelman Gala
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https://doi.org/10.1287/orms.2023.02.17
The 2023 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference in Aurora, Colorado, brought together hundreds of leading advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science professionals and industry experts to discover new mathematical solutions to problems, networking strategies for career advancement, and recognized individual and team efforts with the most prestigious awards in analytics and operations research.
The Edelman Gala features the presentation of four INFORMS-level prizes over the course of an elegant evening. The following awards, finalists and winners were recognized and celebrated during the 2023 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference in Aurora, April 16-18.
Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Advanced Analytics, Operations Research and Management Science
As the most prestigious award for achievement in the practice of advanced analytics and operations research, finalists for the Franz Edelman Award have made incredible contributions to nearly every industry around the world, for a cumulative impact of more than $400 billion since the award’s inception, and countless other nonmonetary benefits.
For more than four decades, winners of the Edelman Award have been credited with transforming how we approach some of the world’s most complex problems. This year’s finalists presented revolutionary contributions in software bidding systems, rideshare matching applications, e-retailer optimization technology, retail truck routing and load planning, delivery order dispatching and streaming service traffic allocation – proving the impact of their work can save lives, save money and solve problems.
Walmart was announced as the winner of the 2023 Franz Edelman Award for its use of operations research (O.R.) to enhance retail truck routing and load planning. Walmart, the world’s leading retailer, used advanced optimization models to build a transformation roadmap for long-term supply chain capital investments as well as an application supporting daily decisions of truck routing and loading. The application avoided 72 million pounds of CO2 and resulted in a savings of $75 million during fiscal year 2023.
Visit INFORMS YouTube channel to watch the 2023 Edelman Award winner announcement as well as the full awards ceremony [1].
In addition to Walmart, the 2023 finalist teams included:
- DHL Supply Chain for “Network Mode, Mixed Fleet, and Staging Optimizations for the DHL Supply Chain”
- Huawei Cloud for “Huawei Cloud Adopts Operations Research for Live Streaming Services to Save the Network Bandwidth Cost: The GSCO System”
- JD.com, Inc., for “Socially Responsible Planning Strengthens Supply Chain Capability for JD.com”
- Lyft, Inc., for “The Perfect Match for Drivers and Riders: Real-time Reinforcement Learning at Lyft”
- Meituan for “Meituan’s Real-time Intelligent Dispatching Algorithms Build World’s Largest Minute-level Delivery Network”
2023 UPS George D. Smith Prize
In addition to the Edelman Award, INFORMS awarded its 2023 UPS George D. Smith Prize to Purdue University, Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business, Business Analytics and Information Management (BAIM) during the gala, for its excellence in preparing students to become practitioners of operations research and analytics.
The BAIM programs at Purdue University are known for their rigor and flexibility, have grown consistently and yield significant student outcomes. With a strong emphasis on algorithmic reasoning, innovation and research-inspired courses, BAIM challenges students to become bold creators, change agents and effective communicators. The program also actively promotes diverse perspectives and empowers students to use analytics for the betterment of society and enhancing human dignity.
Supported by Krenicki Center for Business Analytics and Machine Learning, and corporate partners, BAIM provides abundant experiential learning opportunities, including immersive experiences, paid projects and industry practicums. Students gain valuable skills by presenting their findings through social media, professional organizations and articles . To hear from a BAIM student, visit INFORMS YouTube channel [2].
By honoring Purdue with this award, INFORMS recognizes and celebrates the university’s pioneering efforts in reimagining business education with a focus on business analytics.
Named in honor of the late UPS Chief Executive Officer – a champion of operations researchers at a leading Fortune 500 corporation – the UPS George D. Smith Prize was created in the spirit of strengthening ties between industry and the schools of higher education that graduate young practitioners of operations research. The prize is awarded to an academic department or program for effective and innovative preparation of students to be good practitioners of operations research or analytics.
The two other finalists for the 2023 UPS Smith Prize included: Georgia State University, Institute for Insight, J. Mack Robinson College of Business; and University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management, Master of Management Analytics.
2023 INFORMS Prize
In addition to the Franz Edelman Award, Walmart was also awarded the 2023 INFORMS Prize for half a century of successful analytics applications, particularly for its consistent and innovative dedication to utilizing O.R. and analytics in its organizational decision-making for demand forecasting, supply chain and merchandising operations.
Use cases include tracking inventory positions, optimal truck routing, forecasting demand and inventory levels, cross-docking and shelf space optimization.
The INFORMS Prize honors effective integration of O.R. and analytics into organizational decision-making and is awarded to organizations that have repeatedly applied the principles of O.R. in lasting ways.
Reflecting on their all-encompassing use of data science, Walmart Global Tech’s U.S. Omni Tech EVP Srini Venkatesan said, “We have a long history of using O.R. across the enterprise. It all comes back to one core purpose: to make sure our customers can get the items they want, where they want them and when they want them. We are honored to accept the INFORMS Prize and will continue applying O.R. to drive innovation at scale.”
Speaking on behalf of the selection committee, Nilay Noyan Bulbul, 2023 INFORMS Prize committee chair, remarked: “Walmart is showcasing data science as a source of business success and a necessary element to achieve customer satisfaction with continuous and dedicated practice. Walmart is truly deserving of this prestigious prize, and the entire O.R. and analytics community joins INFORMS in thanking them for their priceless contributions to the field and the business world.”
2022 Wagner Prize
The winner of the 2022 Daniel H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in the Practice of Advanced Analytics and Operations Research was selected during the 2022 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Indianapolis. The winning team included researchers from MIT and Anheuser-Busch InBev for their work that leverages physical retail experiments and a platform named “TestOps” to increase sales and revenue. The platform finds that when treatment effects are small, the environment is noisy and nonstationary, and adherence problems are common, which results in roughly 100x increase of experimental power relative to alternatives. This work sees a 1%-2% increase in sales and nearly $135 million in monthly revenue. The winner was announced in the fall as well as during the Edelman Gala, and a reprise of the winning presentation was also given during the 2023 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference in Aurora.
The prize-winning paper, “Generalized Synthetic Control for TestOps at ABI: Models, Algorithms, and Infrastructure,” provides profound applications of analytics and O.R. to understand experimental power relative to alternatives using physical retail experiments and the platform, “TestOps.”
Congratulations to Tianyi Peng (pictured right), Patricio Foncea, Luis Costa, Jingyuan (Donna) Gan and Vivek F. Farias, MIT; Ivo Rosa Montenegro, Ayush Garg, Dusan Popovic and Kumarjit Pathak, Anheuser-Busch InBev.
2023 Innovative Applications in Analytics Award (IAAA)
The IAAA finalists presented in Aurora during the 2023 conference and the winner was announced during an awards luncheon hosted by the INFORMS Analytics Society.
The purpose of the IAAA is to recognize the creative and unique application of a combination of analytical techniques in a new area. The award promotes the awareness and value of the creative combination of analytics techniques in unusual applications to provide insights and business value. IAAA is sponsored by the Analytics Society of INFORMS, Kinaxis and Adelphi University.
The winning application, “From Particulate Processes to In-vitro Fertilization: Theory to Clinical Practice,” was submitted by a team representing Stochastic Research Technologies LLC, Jijamata Hospital (India) and Akanksha Hospital & Research Center (India). Members of the winning team included Urmila Diwekar, M.Tech. Ph.D. (pictured left); Rajib Mukherjee, M.Tech. Ph.D. and Sanjay Joag, MD Ph.D. (pictured left), Stochastic Research Technologies LLC; Vibha Bhalerao, MD, Jijamata Hospital, India; and Nayana Patel, MD, Akanksha Hospital & Research Center, India.
The winning team’s entry shared clinical trials conducted regarding in-vitro fertilization (IVF) in India. The success of IVF majorly depends upon successful superovulation, defined by the number and uniformly high quality of eggs retrieved in a cycle. Currently, this step is executed using almost daily monitoring of the follicular development using ultrasound and blood tests. Although there are general guidelines for the dosage, the dose is not optimized for each patient, and overstimulation complications can occur. The cost of testing and drugs makes this stage very expensive. To overcome the shortcoming of this system, the team developed a mathematical procedure that can provide a personalized model and optimal drug treatment for each patient. The results of the clinical trial show that the model’s predicted dosage is 30%-40% less than that suggested by the IVF doctors. The testing for patients is reduced by 72%. The team also found that the number of good-quality embryos obtained using this approach was significantly higher than in current practice. This model and optimal control procedure were released in September 2022 as decision-support tool Opt-IVF for hospitals to use in their clinical practice. So far, five hospitals have signed up to use Opt-IVF and are using it daily.
Congratulations to this year’s award finalists and winners!
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