Operations Research Management Science

OR/MS Today — INFORMS News

Posted: 2/13/07

Spring Conference Eyes Business Strategies

The 2007 INFORMS spring conference on "Applying Science to the Art of Business" is designed to give O.R. professionals an inside look at business intelligence strategies deployed across the enterprise. Leading companies will share their analytics best practices in presentations by executives from Amazon.com, UPS, PepsiCo, Ford, Motorola, Johnson & Johnson, HP and many more. Well-known academic speakers from schools such as Stanford, University of British Columbia, Wharton, U.S. Military Academy and Columbia will provide training on strategy and O.R. methodologies.

This INFORMS Practice Conference will be held April 29-May 1 at the Sheraton Wall Centre in Vancouver, Canada. The meeting will also feature the Franz Edelman Competition, with finalist presentations on high-impact O.R. followed by a gala awards ceremony and banquet on Monday evening. Admission to the banquet is included in the conference registration fee.

Three plenary presentations will headline the conference program: Françoise LeGoues, V.P. & chief technology officer, Distribution Sector, IBM Sales & Distribution; Hau L. Lee, Stanford professor and co-director of the Stanford Global Supply Chain Management Forum; and Nader Kabbani, director of Supply Chain Optimization, with Russell Allgor, chief scientist, at Amazon.com.

The conference program, incorporating more than 80 sessions, has been designed by a 21-member council of practitioners and academics, chaired by Jack Levis, director of Process Package Management at UPS (see speaker list). Most talks will be given by invited speakers, all of whom have been selected to address specific topics defined by the council. Additional presentations were selected through a rigorous review process. "Our goal is to put together a cohesive program that emphasizes real-world applications across the scope of O.R. work, along with skill-building tutorials and software training," Levis says.

The Edelman competition, known as the "Super Bowl" of applied O.R., is always a highlight of the conference. This year's finalists include: Coca-Cola, Daimler Chrysler and JD Power & Associates, U.S. Coast Guard, Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Hewlett-Packard.

Attendees can take advantage of two types of software training sessions: tutorials presented during the regular conference, and half-day workshops offered on April 29. Presented by exhibiting companies, both the tutorials and workshops are popular value-added features.

Two special programs are designed for young researchers and graduate students, who are nominated by department chairs or senior managers (the nomination deadline for both programs is March 2). The Young Researcher Connection provides junior faculty and young industry professionals with new perspectives into critical problems facing industry today. The program offers exclusive networking opportunities and includes registration to the conference at a discounted rate.

The INFORMS Professional Colloquium is designed for master's and doctoral students who are interested in practice careers. The full-day, intensive program on April 29 provides career guidance with talks on the O.R. job search, best practices, mentoring and more. In addition to discounted conference registration, IPC attendees receive INFORMS membership. Limited scholarship assistance is available.

The conference location, the Sheraton Wall Centre, is a world-class hotel located in the heart of Vancouver, close to the best of the city's dining, shopping and cultural attractions. The deadline for making hotel reservations is March 28. Rooms are CAD $199 (currently U.S. $169.54) single/double occupancy.

For continuing updates and to register, go to: www.informs.org/Conf/Practice07; 800-343-0062 or 401-722-2595; meetings@informs.org. The "super-saver" discount deadline is Feb. 26; the early registration discount date is April 16.

Conference Tracks

Theories of Practice: Deploying Analytics in the Real World

Trace White, senior operations consultant, Hewlett-Packard Inkjet Supplies Business
Sean Willems, associate professor, Boston University
Jeff Bloom, principal, Booz Allen Hamilton
Jack Levis, director of Package Process Management, UPS
Thomas Baker, former president, Chesapeake Decision Sciences
Peter Kolesar, professor and research director, Deming Center for Quality Productivity & Competitiveness, Columbia University

Applying Analytics in Health Care

Geoff Blair, M.D., chief general surgeon and clinical professor, British Columbia Children's Hospital
Michael Carter, professor, University of Toronto
James Stahl, M.D., senior scientist and assistant professor, Massachusetts General Hospital-Institute for Technology Assessment
Shane Henderson, associate professor, Cornell University
Martin Puterman, professor and research director of the UBC Centre for Health Care Management, and Mats Gerschman, managing director of the Centre for Operations Excellence, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia

Supply Chain Management with "O.R. Inside"

Darren Johnson, senior supply chain strategic planner, Genentech
Matthew Manary, server marketing statistician, Intel
Dennis Arnow, director, Worldwide Supply Chain, Logitech
John Neale, director of research, Optiant Inc.

Applications of Decision Analysis Tools

Jack Kloeber Jr., director, portfolio management, J&J Pharma
Gary DeGregorio, distinguished member of the technical staff, Motorola Labs
Michael Kwinn Jr., associate professor, U.S. Military Academy
Ward Peterson, vice president of Discovery, Inspire Pharmaceuticals
David Skinner, CEO, Decision Strategies, Inc.
David Leonhardi, business strategist, Boeing Commercial Airplane Group

Applying Science to Business Marketing

Gina Pingitore, chief research officer, JD Power & Associates
Peter Fader, professor, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
V. Kumar, professor and executive director, ING Center for Financial Services, University of Connecticut
Gint Puskorius, senior technical leader-business systems research, Ford Motor Co.
Tim Bohling, director of Worldwide Market Intelligence, IBM
Charles Weinberg, professor, Sauder School of Business, Univ. of British Columbia

Operations and Logistics Solutions

Gül Ege, director of R&D, Merchandise Intelligence Solutions, SAS Institute
Ted Gifford, VP of engineering & research, Schneider National
Michael Swihart, strategic supply chain modeler, PepsiCo
David Ryan, professor, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Daniel Vanden Brink, vice president of consulting, LogicTools
Ravindra Ahuja, professor and co-director, Supply Chain and Logistics Engineering Center, University of Florida
Susan Holte, technical Assistant to the administrator, Energy Information Administration, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Tutorials on O.R. Methodologies

Gary Lilien, professor, Smeal College of Business, Penn State, on marketing decision models
Warren Powell, professor, Princeton University, on approximate dynamic programming
Edward Klotz, ILOG, math programming specialist, on solving real-world problems
Jeffrey Linderoth, assistant professor, Lehigh University, on grid computing
Sam Savage, consulting professor, Stanford University, on probability management
Nick Sahinidis, professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, on global optimization
Stephen Powell, professor, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth, on spreadsheet design and trouble-shooting
Michael Zeimer, senior engineer, Schneider National, on building an OR toolbox with Access add-ins
Panel on next generation hardware and software, moderated by Karl Kempf, director of Decision Technologies, Intel

Plus 22 additional select presentations.

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