A Bold New Journey

In March, an exciting new opportunity unexpectedly popped up on my computer screen on an idle Wednesday. It was a job posting for an editor position at a membership association that appeared to be an ideal fit for my 25 years of experience editing professional publications.

I began a quick study of the association, INFORMS, and its membership, values, and goals and quickly realized that this could be an opportunity of a lifetime for me. From just a brief overview of INFORMS’ website and publications, I could tell that the depth and breadth of the knowledge possessed by the OR/MS  community is immense and that the power of that knowledge to transform the world is infinite. 

I applied as quickly as I could and was beyond delighted when I landed the job and assumed the role of editor of OR/MS Today and Analytics. I am both excited and humbled by the task before me. There are big shoes to fill from this publication’s previous editors, and I know I have a ton to learn.

In the short three months since I have assumed my role, I’ve gotten to know a dedicated staff and some very passionate members. I had the opportunity to connect with those members during my second week on the job at INFORMS Analytics+ Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. It was a baptism by fire of sorts, attending a conference sponsored by my employer of just five days, but I was there for it and absorbed all I could.

At Analytics+, I learned many examples of how INFORMS’ members are transforming a wide variety of industries with out-of-the-box thinking that is creating novel solutions to established problems. Watching the presentations by the Edleman Award finalists on supply chain replenishment, food distribution, cloud fulfillment, and carbon-aware high-performance computing was particularly eye-opening. They gave me valuable insight into the thought processes that went into approaching previously intractable problems with non-traditional tools.

In my first issue of OR/MS Today, there are several fascinating stories of how the tools of operations research and management science can be leveraged to apply to a multitude of modern scenarios. 

In our cover story, “Data as a Strategic Asset: Transforming the U.S. Army Into a Data-Centric Organization,” the authors discuss how the U.S. Army is strategically using data to improve readiness, decision-making, and operational effectiveness. They outline the challenges the Army faces, including siloed data and inconsistent standards, and describe the governance structures and frameworks being put into place to address them.

We also feature a powerful story about the role of analytics in international development. In “From Data to Water: Building Resilience in Rural Gambia with the Analytics Mindset,” Jim Cochran shares how he approached the challenge of improving access to potable water in remote rural villages in The Gambia. He first listened to local communities and village leaders and then applied structured, data-driven methods to develop a plan to secure funding and build sustainable solutions.

The authors of “What Smarter Scheduling Can Deliver: Optimizing the World Cup Schedule to Reduce Athlete Jet Lag” demonstrate how analytics can be brought to bear in the world of sports. Given the complex logistics of moving a multitude of players among the stages of the World Cup in Canada, Mexico, and the U.S., the authors propose a practical, data-driven approach to optimize match schedules and reduce the amount of time teams spend traveling among matches – thus limiting the impact of jet lag on their performance and health.

Two additional articles in this issue propose answers to the question of why so many AI initiatives fail. One highlights the challenges of data that were designed for human interpretation rather than machine use, emphasizing the importance of context, governance, and knowledge structures. The other introduces a leadership framework to help organizations build the systems and learning processes needed to sustain progress in AI and analytics.

This issue also underscores the lasting influence of academic research. Revisiting Eugene Lawler’s reflection on Soviet mathematician Leonid Khachiyan’s great mathematical discovery in the late 1970s, author Anand Subramanian recounts how that discovery rocked the Western hemisphere in “Revisiting the Great Mathematical Sputnik of 1979.” 

Another article, “The ChanceOmeter” describes a freely available tool that applies an AI-enabled framework that uses stochastic data to focus on probabilities rather than misleading averages. 

The insights I’ve gained from editing this issue of OR/MS Today have more than piqued my interest to further explore a field of study that can be brought to bear on industries as varied as international aid, sports, and military preparedness. I look forward to producing many more issues and sharing with readers the vast potential of OR/MS to make our world a better place.