Spring 2008

THE TERRORIST EVENTS ON SEPT. 11, 2001, WILL FOREVER ALTER THE WAY OUR NATION VIEWS AVIATION SECURITY. The article by Barnett (2001) in OR/MS Today highlighted numerous important questions and issues surrounding the events of that day and how air travel has been and will continue to be affected. Since then, aviation security systems have undergone significant changes, though the analysis of such systems continues to lag well behind their actual operation. Operations research provides a unique set of methodologies and tools for designing and analyzing aviation security systems, since the foundation of operations research is based on applying analytical methods to optimally allocate and use scarce assets in making better informed decisions.

• Laura McLay
• John Kobza

In the face of a very competitive Western European market, French automaker Renault decided in 1999 to launch the “New Delivery Project” aimed at offering its customers all the diversity of the product range while shortening delivery times. Lead times between the customer order and the arrival in dealerships were to be reduced from six weeks on average to three weeks in Western Europe. The three weeks include the production and transportation of the customer vehicle.

• Alain Nguyen

Besides the inconvenience of waiting, why is this important? Think of two words from queueing theory: balking and reneging. Potential voters who see a long queue may balk from entering it. Others may enter the queue but leave it later, renege, due to frustration at the slow pace of the line. Unwillingness to wait may be due to time personal constraints,such as job or family obligations,or maybe just impatience. If those who balk or renege are differentially more from one political party than another, then the party most affected will complain, saying that some of “its voters”did not vote due to long lines.

From birth to death, we are all part of the healthcare system. We rely on both public and private organizations to provide preventive care (such as inoculations) and to treat our illnesses, diseases and injuries. Healthcare is perhaps the strongest determinant of both our quality of life and our longevity.

• Randolph W. Hall

So here you are,starting your last school year. Perhaps you’re finishing a B.S. in operations research, with a double minor in something utterly practical, like computer science and accounting, and an unholy fascination with the left nullspace of a certain type of sparse matrix. Or perhaps you’re polishing off a Ph.D. in industrial engineering, while managing to take as many Italian art classes as you can for free while you’re still a full-time student. Or perchance you’re an undergrad majoring in applied mathematics because your school doesn’t offer a full-blown OR/MS major, and while you can program a little and learned to order another cappuccino in Italian while in Rome last summer, you have spent the vast majority of the past few years working your way up to being president of your sorority, a position which now quite frankly consumes more of your time than your senior thesis.

• Carrie Beam

WE USE SIMULATION TO REALIZE OUR IMAGINATION in a specific and detailed way – rendering what we imagination in a way that we can grasp. For instance, one may use laser devices to simulate the effect of actual arms during a military exercise, while preserving the dust, heat and fatigue that soldiers experience during actual operations; or simulate the equations of motion to provide the sensation of flying an airliner under adverse conditions to prepare a pilot to deal with an emergency; or model the interactions among producers and suppliers to predict the performance of an international supply chain. However we use it, simulation tools are there to aid our imagination to probe the frontiers of knowledge, to teach or simply to entertain.

• James J. Swain