Introduction: 2011 Daniel H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research Practice

CPMS, the Practice Section of INFORMS, strives to support OR/MS practitioners by publicizing OR/MS success stories and by connecting professionals with similar interests. We are therefore pleased to present the results from the 2011 competition for the Daniel H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research Practice, established in memory of the late Dr. Daniel H. Wagner.

Dan Wagner earned his PhD in mathematics from Brown University in 1951. His dissertation, “On Free Products of Groups,” was published in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society in 1957 (Wagner 1957). He began his career in the US Navy's Operations Evaluation Group (OEG) at the Pentagon, where he worked on operations research for naval warfare. He worked there until 1956, with a one-year leave of absence for postdoctoral research on free algebras at MIT. Dan then joined Burroughs Research Center, where he directed a group of mathematicians performing analysis for the development of digital computers.

In 1957, Dan's entrepreneurial spirit took over, and together with Dr. John D. Kettelle, he formed the partnership of Kettelle and Wagner, which was dissolved in 1963. That same year, he formed a new company, Daniel H. Wagner Associates, Inc. This company did leading-edge work in the mathematics of naval tactics, especially antisubmarine warfare, detection theory, and search planning.

During his years as president and principal owner of Wagner Associates, Dr. Wagner brought many high-quality mathematicians into the operations research community. This led to significant advances in the firm's fields of endeavor and delivery of significant applications to Navy, Coast Guard, and other clients; many of these applications are still in service today.

After retirement from his eponymous company, Dan continued his commitment to the field of operations research, serving in various teaching and research positions with the US Naval Postgraduate School and the US Naval Academy. He was an active member of ORSA, and then INFORMS, for more than 40 years.

The idea for this prize began at Dan's memorial service in April 1997, where many of his former colleagues gathered. Following the agreements made on that day and the subsequent pledges, the firms Metron, Inc., Daniel H. Wagner Associates, Inc., and Applied Mathematics, Inc. generously donated a total of $51,000 as an endowment to ensure the availability of a cash award in perpetuity. Each of these companies is an outgrowth in large part of Dan's early efforts.

Metron, Inc. (President and COO Tom Corwin, http://www.metsci.com) is a scientific consulting company dedicated to solving challenging problems in national defense through the development and application of advanced mathematical methods. Problem solutions are realized using computer software with graphical interfaces that allow a user to understand and act on the results without having to comprehend the models' intricacies.

Daniel H. Wagner Associates, Inc. (President Allen Butler, http://www.wagner.com) specializes in innovative mathematical solutions to problems in government and business. The firm provides consulting services in operations research, mathematics, and related software development. It also offers a variety of ready-made products for financial analysis.

Applied Mathematics, Inc. (President Bill Browning, http://www.applmath.com) develops and implements mathematical models that are used in real time for decision making. Current application areas include submarine warfare, search and tracking, search and rescue, clinical informatics, and vineyard analytics.

We are grateful to the judges who donated their time to evaluate the entries and select the winners of this year's competition: C. Allen Butler, Daniel H. Wagner Associates, Inc. (Committee Chair); Susan L. Albin, Rutgers University; Peter C. Bell, University of Western Ontario; Srinivas Bollapragada, GE Global Research Center; William J. Browning, Applied Mathematics, Inc.; Manoj Chari, SAS Institute; Joseph H. Discenza, SmartCrane LLC; Randall S. Robinson, Past Chair CPMS; Donald R. (Bob) Smith, Monmouth University; and Lawrence Stone, Metron, Inc.

The judging committee selected semifinalists on the basis of their abstracts and verification of success in practice. The semifinalists were then invited to submit drafts of their full papers. Based on the draft papers, the judging committee selected the finalists, who presented their work at the 2011 INFORMS annual meeting and whose papers constitute this special issue. Judging of the final papers and selection of the winning entry were on the basis of the following criteria: quality and coherence of analysis and originality of mathematical solutions, quality and clarity of writing, utility or success of the work in one or more real-world practice applications, and quality and clarity of the oral presentation.

The finalists this year include both US and international entries, and the papers describe innovative operations research applications in the diverse worlds of product planning, public education, advertising, postal service, manufacturing, and nonprofit aquarium exhibits.

The 2011 Wagner Prize was won by operations research professionals from Intel Corporation. Their paper, titled “Product Line Design and Scheduling at Intel,” describes new methods to support planning what products to offer with what features throughout a multistage planning period. To permit comprehensively addressing market requirements and associated financials, limited engineering capabilities, manufacturing costs, and dynamic timing, the team members created original models and solutions. Their approach entails decomposing the models into two layers: an outer genetic algorithm layer handles resource constraints, scheduling, and financial optimization; an inner mathematical programming layer optimizes product composition as classical set covering. Eighteen months after its first deployment, the suite of models and methods was in use by over 250 personnel representing most major Intel groups and many distinct job functions. The decision support suite is successfully integrating various previously separate noncommunicating business processes.

When a public school system wishes to offer highly individualized instruction in one or several experimental schools, the job of creating schedules for courses, teachers, and students becomes more difficult. A team from Analytics Operations Engineering, Inc. joined with the New York City Department of Education to develop methods and software to address this problem. As reported in “iSchedule to Personalize Learning,” the team developed an algorithm that applies a graph-coloring method solved by heuristics. Because educators have multiple competing objectives not readily quantified, the implementing software, called iSchedule, outputs several different workable schedules for consideration before ultimately choosing one to adopt. The new methods enabled administrators to better satisfy student needs, while reducing the time devoted to scheduling at a school from roughly eight weeks to roughly two weeks.

How can an advertiser make its Internet ads more effective? In “To Show or Not Show: Using User Profiling to Manage Internet Advertisement Campaigns at Chitika,” a team from the University of Texas and Texas A&M University describes its original analytical methods implemented for the Internet advertising firm Chitika. The team's decision support models help increase ad revenue in the common situation where the publisher who controls the website on which the ads will be displayed requires an advertiser to achieve at least a specified minimum number of visitors who click on the ad. The models predict whether a visitor to an Internet site will click on a given ad and then determine whether or not to show the ad to the visitor. Implementation significantly increased Chitika's revenue and helped Chitika sign up more website publishers for its ads.

La Poste, the French national postal service, wanted to begin acquiring electric vehicles to distribute mail and packages. To help determine how best to proceed in light of budget restrictions, management turned to researchers from INSEAD (France) and WHU–Otto Beisheim School of Management (Germany) to provide supporting analysis. Considering conventional vehicles and electric vehicles, and taking into account aspects such as uncertain future fuel prices and electric vehicle battery costs, team members derived a preferred strategy for adopting electric vehicles over time. They also examined sensitivities to key model parameters. The resulting analysis, described in “Fleet Renewal with Electric Vehicles at La Poste,” has assisted La Poste in its planning and in negotiations with stakeholders, including energy companies and electric vehicle manufacturers.

In automotive manufacturing, the quest for efficiency in stamping operations faces a particularly high level of complexity. A team from Ford, the University of Waterloo (Canada), and the University of Michigan addressed this complexity by developing decision support methods and software for associated stamping planning, workforce planning, and production scheduling. “Ford Motor Company Implements Integrated Planning and Scheduling in a Complex Automotive Manufacturing Environment” describes the project team's methods and implementation. Although created for stamping plants, the approach may be applied in other manufacturing processes, especially where setup times are critical. Ford's utilization of the methods for planning and scheduling has given rise to significant benefits, such as reductions in inventory costs, freight charges, and overtime wages.

The Georgia Aquarium, the world's largest aquarium, planned a major new exhibit titled “Dolphin Tales.” To help plan the exhibit, the aquarium teamed with researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology. As reported in “Designing Guest Flow and Operations Logistics for the Dolphin Tales,” the project team provided planning assistance by developing original methods and software. The methods incorporate novel components, such as effective integration of simulation and optimization, fast solutions through heuristics, and automatic translation of computer-rendered drawings into system process maps. The resulting implemented recommendations resulted in reduced congestion and a better overall experience for guests who visit the exhibit, lower operating costs, better treatment of the dolphins, and improvements in operations and show scheduling.

We congratulate all the authors for their outstanding work and again thank the loyal judges for their continuing volunteer efforts that make this competition possible. We are looking forward to a strong competition for the 2012 meeting in Phoenix, Arizona and to recognizing the winner at the Edelman Gala during next year's INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research in San Antonio, Texas.