The Editor's Green Eyeshade: Verification, Etc.

The most important papers we publish are verified reports of the practice of MS/OR. The best examples of these can be found in the annual Edelman Prize Competition issue. The verification process for the Edelman Competition papers is performed by a committee appointed by the TIMS College on the Practice of Management Science, but, in principle we do much the same thing with practice papers in regular issues. We do require verification for such papers; the most common verification procedure is for a senior executive or official of the organization to write to me, verifying that (a) the work was done as reported in the paper, (b) the resulting analysis or system or results (whatever) are being used and (c) what the benefits derived from that work were. Benefits may refer to dollar estimates of cost savings when appropriate. In other circumstances, the benefits may be the qualitative impact the work had on a major decision. Benefits are situation-specific—authors should call me if they have questions about their situation.