Applications of Analytics
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CLICK HERE FOR TRACK 2 - TUESDAY SCHEDULE
MONDAY, MAY 20
9:10am-10:00am
Spreadsheet Engineering: Improving End-User Modeling
Stephen G. Powell, PhD
Professor, Amos Tuck School of Business
Dartmouth College
The
great advantage of the spreadsheet as a modeling platform is that it
allows end-users to build models quickly and tailor them to their own
needs. However, the open-ended spreadsheet format provides no structure or
discipline for modeling. As a consequence, most end-users employ
inefficient and ineffective design and analysis tools. Worse yet, the
evidence suggests that most spreadsheets in use contain significant
errors. Spreadsheet engineering involves a disciplined but practical
approach to constructing and using spreadsheets. It is intended to improve
the efficiency and effectiveness of business analysts who use spreadsheets
extensively. In this session, Powell will present:
Packaging
OR for Non-OR Users
A
Panel Discussion
Moderator:
H. Donald Ratliff, PhD
Regents
and UPS Professor of Industrial &Systems Engineering; Executive
Director, Logistics Institute
Georgia
Institute of Technology
President
and CEO, Velant, Inc.
In
many organizations, operations research tools and models are often used by
people who don’t understand the OR technology inside. In addition, these
models may require an over-abundance of input data and spill out even more
in the way of results, all of which must be somehow understood by the
users. It’s no wonder that designing and packaging the OR “black
box” is a daunting task. In this extended session, a panel of OR
professionals from leading companies will share their experiences with
putting “OR inside.” Dust off some of your great, never-used OR models
and see if a new wrapper is all that’s needed.
2:00pm-2:50pm
Using
Decision Analysis to Improve Enterprise-Wide Capital Budgeting in Health
Care Organizations
Don
N. Kleinmuntz, MBA, PhD
Professor
of Business Administration
Univ.
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Principal,
Strata Decision Technology
Catherine
E. Kleinmuntz,PhD
CEO
Strata
Decision Technology
How
can decision analysis models be used to improve capital budgeting when
requests for capital far exceed the capital available and where proposed
expenditures are difficult to evaluate using traditional financial
criteria? Don and Catherine Kleinmuntz will describe a process,
implemented in more than 300 health care organizations, that uses a
combination of multi-attribute value models to evaluate project benefits
and integer programming to construct optimal project portfolios. They’ll
focus on an implementation at a $3 billion not-for-profit health care
system that encompasses more than 20 hospitals, as well as physician
practices, long-term care and assisted-living facilities, health coverage
plans and other services. They will review:
3:30pm-4:20pm
A
Money-Making Merger: Financial Services and Optimization
Sebastian
Ceria, PhD
President
and CEO
Axioma,
Inc.
Over
the past few years, there’s been a noticeable increase in the use of
optimization technology in financial services institutions. The wide
availability of financial data coupled with the increase in computer power
and recent discoveries in algorithm development now make it possible to
attack problems–many of them in real-time–that only a few years ago
were thought to be unsolvable. Optimization software is now routinely used
in areas as diverse as asset management, securities pricing, trading and
securitization. In this talk, Ceria will present a broad overview of the
state-of-the-art in financial optimization, with special emphasis on
applications in the area of asset management. He’ll discuss how
optimization can be applied to solve day-to-day problems faced by both
fundamental and quantitative portfolio managers.
4:30pm-5:20pm
Telemanufacturing:
Enterprise Modeling and Decision Support Systems
Layek Abdel-Malek, PhD
Associate
Dean, Professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Since
the early 1980s, manufacturing has experienced significant changes related
to modeling, systems and philosophies. These changes have been mainly
propelled by the advent of information technologies, affordability of high
computing power, globalization of workplaces, and increased capacity in
reliable transportation modes. As a result, many 19th and 20th century
manufacturing axioms have been transformed. One of the emerging practices
in industry today is telemanufacturing. In this presentation, Malek will:
|
TUESDAY,
MAY 21
10:00am-10:50am
Bruce Nemlich, MBA
Senior
Director, Management Science
Pfizer
Pharmaceuticals
The
management science group at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals has a long history of
impacting the business, as evidenced by winning the 1996 INFORMS Prize.
Since then, the group has grown three-fold and now operates more
comprehensively, with more in-line products and on a wider variety of
issues. They help drive profitability directly in areas such as promotion
resource impact measurement and allocation, in-licensing of new products,
and field force effectiveness, sizing and structure. Most members of the
group are former management consultants with strong quantitative
backgrounds. They are able to operate effectively at a strategic level
with vice-presidents and product team leaders. Nemlich, who has led the
management science group since 1994, will trace its development and work,
sharing insights on the factors that have led to success.
Sponsored
by the INFORMS Roundtable
11:00am-11:50am
Predictive
Customer Relationship Management: Profiting from Really Getting to Know
Your Customers
Harlan
P. Crowder, PhD
Principal
Scientist
Hewlett-Packard
Laboratories
Predictive
customer relationship management (CRM), the discipline of getting to know
your customers by performing complex analysis on data about them, is
rapidly changing the way companies make operational and strategic
decisions about procurement, production, marketing, and sales of products
and services. The application of predictive CRM involves three
interrelated problems: (1) classification of customers based on historical
behavior; (2) construction and operation of analytical models for
predicting customers’ future behavior; and (3) deciding the actions to
take for classes of customers and allocating scarce resources to implement
the actions and meet business objectives. In this session, Crowder will
outline the issues involved in applying predictive CRM, explore the
characteristics of successful deployments, and review requisite
technologies and disciplines. Several
predictive CRM case studies will be presented and discussed.
Sponsored
by the INFORMS Roundtable
1:30pm-2:20pm
Telecommunications,
the Internet and Electronic Commerce
Bezalel
Gavish, PhD
Eugene
J. and Ruth F. Constantin Distinguished Chair in Business
Edwin
L. Cox School of Business
Southern
Methodist University
The
last decade has seen an explosion in the deployment and use of the
Internet, networking and the wide application of electronic commerce.
Gavish will examine some of those developments, exploring their importance
and potential impact in all areas of communications–wire-based, wireless
services and satellite communications. He’ll look first at the many
predictions made about the growth and economic impact of the Internet and
provide an update on whether those predictions will be realized. The
Internet has also led to the introduction of new applications and
services, both for end-users (consumers), businesses and service
providers. Those services and their deployment raise new management issues
that must be addressed. Gavish will explore these questions and introduce
new mathematical models that can be useful tools. Preliminary results
stemming from some of these models will be highlighted.
3:00pm-3:50pm
Achieving
Improvement in Forecasting: Theory and Practice
Robert Fildes, PhD
President,
International Institute of Forecasters
Professor
of Management Science
Lancaster
University, UK
Accurate
forecasts are needed across a wide range of organizational functions
including manufacturing and marketing. Research on forecasting has been
vigorous and far ranging in recent years. New methods have been proposed,
including computer intensive approaches as well as further developments in
statistical, econometric and OR methods. Researchers and consultants alike
make great claims for their success. But have these methods been
successfully implemented in practice? In this presentation, Fildes will
focus on where successes have been achieved, how these successes should be
measured, why well-intentioned implementations have failed, and the
organizational changes needed to ensure that the potential of forecasting
is realized. The key issue is the link between the forecasters, the
forecast users and their management information system.
4:00pm-4:50pm
Roundtable
Panel
Positioning
Operations Research and Management Science Within the Enterprise: A
Roundtable Perspective
Panel
Moderator: Irvin J. Lustig, PhD
Manager
of Technical Services
ILOG,
Inc.
To
be successful within their organizations, OR/MS practitioners often have
to sell the benefits of their analytical skills to members of the
management team. Many of us struggle with the best ways to do this. The
INFORMS Roundtable presents a few of its members from leading companies
who will share their personal experiences with this endeavor. Each
panelist will describe the tactics they have used, some successful and
some not, to convince management that operations research and management
science activities are valuable to the continued success of their
enterprises.
Sponsored by the INFORMS Roundtable