Operations Research Management Science Today - Question & Answer

<BODY bgcolor="#ffffff" link="cc0000" vlink="cc0000" text="#000000"> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br>   <table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 width=480><tr valign=top> <td width=10><img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 hspace=4 border=0></td> <td width=470> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><B><I><A HREF="../../ORMS.shtml" TARGET="_top">OR/MS Today</A> - December 2002</I></B></font><BR> <hr size="1"> <img src="cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <font face="times new roman, times"> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><B>Question & Answer</B></FONT><br> <IMG SRC="../barbluehook.gif" WIDTH="468" HEIGHT="4"><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <FONT SIZE="+2"><B>Preaching What He Practices</B></FONT><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=2 border=0><br> <FONT SIZE="+1"><I>The selling of OR: Incoming INFORMS President Tom Cook to focus on marketing the profession and educating consumers.</I></FONT><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><B>The selling of OR: Incoming INFORMS President Tom Cook to focus on marketing the profession and educating consumers.</B></FONT><br> <hr size="1"> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br>    As this historic year for INFORMS comes to a close, many within the OR/MS community are "celebrating 50 years of operations research" by pausing to look back at the profession's many achievements and the people who made them possible (see <I><A HREF="../orms-10-02/tocfr.html" TARGET="_top">OR/MS Today,</I> October 2002</A>). No history of the profession would be complete without mention of Tom Cook, the one-time college professor who left academia to build Sabre into the biggest and arguably the best and most influential OR group in the world.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> During his nearly two decades at the helm of the AMR Corporation subsidiary, Cook transformed a small department buried in the bowels of the massive conglomerate (AMR is the parent of American Airlines) into an 8,000-strong OR/IT powerhouse that revolutionized the entire airline industry through a series of innovative applications, including the "killer app" known as revenue management.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> By the time Cook left Sabre in 1999, his group was producing an estimated $1 billion in annual incremental revenue for AMR and its internal client, American Airlines. Along the way, Sabre played the pivotal role as American Airlines won two Franz Edelman Awards  the "Super Bowl of OR/MS"  in recognition of their outstanding practice of operations research and management science.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Last January, Cook was named chairman and CEO of CALEB Technologies Corp., an Austin, Texas-based company that develops and markets decision-support solutions aimed primarily at the airline industry (see <A HREF="../orms-2-02/tocfr.html" TARGET="_top"><I>OR/MS Today,</I> February 2002</A>). The company, which specializes in disruption recovery and resource planning systems, helped client Continental Airlines earn this year's Edelman Award from INFORMS.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> A few months before he landed at CALEB, Cook was elected president-elect of INFORMS, which brings us to his latest challenge. When he officially takes the reins of the 50-year-old organization on Jan. 1, 2003, Cook will bring with him plenty of ideas to improve INFORMS and plenty of expectations to make a difference. Cook and a combination of committees, boards and volunteers will supply the ideas. His constituents, in this case the 10,000 or so rank-and-file members of INFORMS looking for Cook to revitalize their association, if not their profession, will carry the expectations.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> INFORMS members can certainly count on Cook, who has successfully "sold" operations research to corporate clients for 25 years, to preach the virtues of what he practices. He knows he has a good product. The question is, can INFORMS under Cook's leadership expand the market and find new buyers? In the following interview with <I>OR/MS Today</I> editor Peter Horner, Cook spells out his plans, goals and hopes for the Institute during his year as president and beyond.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B><I>OR/MS Today:</I> You are about to become the first full-time practitioner to serve as president of INFORMS. What does that imply?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> <B><I>Cook:</I></B> My position all along has been that operations research without practice isn't a viable field. From my perspective, if you take the practice and applications out of it, you are left with a very narrow subset of mathematics. Operations research without practice shouldn't even exist.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>In your presidential position statement, you wrote that "as a discipline, [operations research] could set records for underachievement." What did you mean by that?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> I have a huge respect for our discipline and its potential. I've seen it turn around companies. I've seen it turn around industries, help win wars and so forth. Consequently, given what I perceive as our almost unlimited potential, we are underachieving.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>If the discipline is an applied one, where does that leave the academic side of the profession?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Obviously, practice without theory isn't any good, either. If we didn't have the tools to apply to real-world problems then we couldn't be successful. We couldn't solve the problems we have solved if we didn't have linear programming, integer programming, network algorithms, sophisticated forecasting and simulation techniques. All I'm saying is that optimization without a real problem to optimize is a nice exercise, but that's all it is.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>You've had tremendous success applying OR techniques to real-world problems at Sabre, and more recently at CALEB. Every practitioner seems to be looking for that same kind of success. What do you tell them?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> I've held several seminars in which I've discussed what I consider success and failure factors. Anyone who has successfully applied operations research knows what those are. I'm one of many people who have been somewhat successful in this area. Just go to the Edelman sessions every year and you'll see very successful applications. A lot of people are doing good work. When I say we're underachieving, it's not because I don't think good things are happening. They are. I just don't see as many successful applications as we would like.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>Are there commonalties in those successes?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Yes, and maybe that's an article all by itself. There are lots of reason why people have success in applying operations research, and a lot of reasons why people experience failure. I know both sides... success and failure.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>Perhaps you can share some of those commonalties over the coming year in the President's Desk column. In the meantime, what will be the theme, focus or goal of your presidency?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> It's consistent with what I've said to the Board, to the Management Science Roundtable and to my Strategic Planning Committee. Basically, my goal is to identify and implement changes to existing INFORMS programs, products and activities, and initiate new activities that will have a positive impact on moving our discipline toward becoming one that is more applied. I'm going to devote my term  and it's not just one year; I've learned that the president-elect has a lot to do and the past-president has a lot to do  and the majority of my energy to seeing what can be done to move that practice dial so that we can become a more applied discipline.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>Do you have specific changes in mind?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> After talking with the Strategic Planning Committee that I formed when I first became president-elect, the Roundtable and the Board itself, we've identified five or six dozen activities, many of them new, that could have a positive impact on practice. We're gone through a fairly structured methodology to prioritize these activities. Then we took that database, sliced and diced it, and came up with two major focuses that are somewhat complementary.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> One is the need to do a better job of marketing the profession. That's different than marketing INFORMS. <I>OR/MS Today</I> does a good job of marketing the profession, but I think we, as a discipline, suffer from underexposure. Not enough people understand what we do and the value we bring to the table.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Secondly, we need to do a better job of educating and motivating existing and future consumers of operations research. We somehow have to reach the decision-makers. I'm not just talking about the Bob Crandalls (former CEO of AMR) of the world. I'm talking about mid-management, management, government decision-makers and so forth. We need to somehow get them to understand the true potential of embracing decision-support solutions as opposed to a pure information technology solution to their problem.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>When you say "we," are you referring to all INFORMS members, volunteers, practitioners or someone else?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> When you look at the makeup of INFORMS, you could categorize everyone into academics or practitioners. That oversimplifies it, because many academics do a lot in the way of practice, and vice versa. The point is, both of these populations depend on the successful marketing of operations research. If people aren't buying what we have to sell, then the people who are actually trying to sell it  operations research groups within companies, OR-based companies like CALEB, consulting firms and so forth  those people aren't going to get the work. If there's no demand for our solutions, then the demand for OR graduates starts waning. Therefore, OR academic programs start shrinking. All of us have a stake in this.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>The problem of marketing OR is almost as old as the profession itself. How is this latest effort going to be different?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> I don't have all the answers. We are looking at potentially getting some third-party assistance to professionally market our discipline. Again, that's different than marketing INFORMS. We're talking to marketing firms to see if they can come up with a program that would make sense to the INFORMS Board. We're just starting that. At the same time, the Public Information Committee, as you know, is working on the branding issue. We have to come up with an integrated, holistic approach to marketing that would include the branding effort that's ongoing right now.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>At the risk of beating a dead horse, where do you stand on the name issue? Is the marketing problem rooted in the name "operations research," or does INFORMS spend too much time fretting over a non-issue?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> I think having one brand would be a very positive thing for our discipline. What that brand is named isn't as important. I think there is a danger that we will spend too much of our energy and dissipate that energy worrying about whether we should call ourselves operations research, management science, OR/MS or something else. We can really waste an opportunity if we get too obsessed with what the name should be.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>What do you consider the strengths and the weaknesses of INFORMS?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> I see plenty of strengths and I see opportunities rather than weaknesses. The membership, obviously, is the strength of INFORMS. The journals are well respected and quite viable financially. The meetings are well attended and seem to add a lot of value. The volunteer support is very strong in the society. The organization is financially strong, and we provide a cost-effective service to our members. All of those things are strengths, and there are others as well.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> I think if you look at the recent member surveys, you will see that there are opportunities for INFORMS to improve in almost all of our activities. The one thing people criticize about our journals, for example, is their relevance. Some people think we can do a better job with training programs and conference themes. The big thing we've been talking about is improving the public image of our profession. I think INFORMS has a responsibility to build a positive public image for the profession we're all involved in.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>The number of members in INFORMS has been stagnant for nearly a decade. Is that a major concern?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Yes. That's why when we talked about the membership survey at the last Board meeting, I was pretty vocal that we not gloss over what the results are telling us. They results tell us that we have some strengths and we do some things really well, but there are other areas that we need to pay attention to if we're going to service the membership in the way it wants to be serviced. The outreach program could be strengthened. Job placement could be strengthened. A lot of other professional societies are perceived as doing a better job in these areas than we are.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>On your list of priorities, where does membership growth rank?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> I think the growth in membership will follow if we first do a better job of marketing the profession and really improve some of the programs and products that INFORMS offers. If you are asking me if I intend to launch a formal membership campaign, the answer is no. I think membership will grow if we create a society that members see value in belonging to.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>The number of student members of INFORMS has fallen off dramatically. Clearly, INFORMS is having a tough time reaching the next generation of academics and practitioners.</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Someone on the academic side, someone who deals with students on a daily basis, would know more about that than I do. I don't know why student chapters aren't popping up all over the place and why we don't have more student members. I think there is a demand-pull phenomenon that should be going on, and it starts with the application side of our discipline. If there are lots of applications going on, there will be lots of demand for people who are trained to deliver quality and value through operations research. Again, we need to vitalize our discipline and the membership  students and non-students alike  will take care of itself.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>Do you have a sense about what the INFORMS membership is thinking in terms of their jobs, their careers and the way the profession is going?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> I think there's concern about the discipline, the relevance of the discipline. There's concern that operations research is vanishing from the business schools, which I think is a real problem because the business schools are educating many of the future consumers of OR. Consequently, I worry that 10 or 20 years from now, people who haven't been introduced to operations research and the value it can provide will have a hard time signing up for a multimillion project that has OR at its very core.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>Given that, will the decisive marketing battle be waged in business schools rather than boardrooms?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> I think it's a dual battle. You have to go to both places.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>One only has to attend an Edelman competition to see ample evidence that OR works in the real world, so why aren't more companies using it to gain a competitive advantage?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> You're right, there is plenty of evidence that OR works. There are many answers to your question. One of the big reasons is that management isn't aware of the power of operations research. As a discipline, we don't do a good job of promoting our profession. Even if there is an OR group within a company, sometimes that group will fail because they don't do a good job of marketing themselves within the company, or they don't make themselves relevant to the business on a real-time basis. I know some OR groups that are really research groups that happen to be living in a company when, in my opinion, they should be serving as internal consulting groups and trying to maximize their impact on the company.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> A lot depends on the leadership of the OR group as well as the management of the company and whether they have an appreciation for OR. A lot depends on the relationship between OR and the information technology group within the company. There are many variables that determine whether operations research will make an impact on a particular organization. We can talk about this for a long, long time. Many people are trying to figure it out.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>I can see why some companies may be reluctant to invest in OR, but given the success you and others have had using OR to improve corporate bottom lines, why are management science courses under fire at business schools?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> I don't know this for a fact, but it might be that the people who are teaching operations research or management science aren't flexible enough. I also know there are people like Peter Bell, Tom Grossman and others who are really, I think, at the forefront of how you teach today's business students in terms of what they can do with OR in their careers and what their future employers can do with OR. I sense  and I don't know this for a fact  that many people who are teaching OR today are teaching the way they were teaching it 20, 10 or even 5 years ago. The problem is, the world has changed.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>Can INFORMS play a role in addressing the "generation gap" you described?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Sure. Why can't INFORMS help the people who want to improve the teaching of operations research or management science in a business school by sponsoring workshops? I know Tom [Grossman] and Peter [Bell] have held these kind of workshops, but why aren't there more of them, and why aren't they ongoing?<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>You have organized INFORMS sessions promoting the practice of OR. Are you suggesting that INFORMS institutionalize these training activities in some fashion?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> There are many ideas floating around out there about how we can better market operations research to the business community. Quite frankly, I think we're still in the infancy stage of doing that. For us to really move the dial we need to get some professional help. We need people who are devoted to the objective of marketing OR, not only to today's consumers and decision-makers, but also in business schools. Hopefully, we'll get a lot of volunteer help, but I think we need to augment that volunteer effort with some professional outside help.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>INFORMS is celebrating 50 years of operations research this year. The profession and the Institute enjoy a rich history marked by outstanding individuals and remarkable achievements. What is your take on the significance of the Institute and your term as president during this historic time?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> When you look back, there have been so many huge breakthroughs, so many important discoveries and so many important applications, it's just phenomenal. As you say, our history is, indeed, rich. We really do have some giants in the field, many of whom published in the 50th anniversary of our journal, <I>Operations Research.</I><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>With all you have going on as the CEO of CALEB, how will you find the time and energy to take on the role of president of INFORMS? What motivates you to serve the Institute?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Well... (laugh). When I took on CALEB last January, I didn't know it was going to be a 70-hour-a-week job. I knew it would be tough at the beginning, but I thought by now I would be back to a more normal schedule. It's still not normal; in fact, it's very time consuming. I don't feel I have contributed to INFORMS nearly as much as many other volunteers have. Whatever I contribute to the Institute, I do because I really respect our profession and care about it moving forward. Serving as president of INFORMS can be a big job, and it should be. My biggest fear is I won't do it justice.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>Somehow I think your fears are unfounded. Given your success at Sabre and now at CALEB, I get the sense that the membership is looking for some of that Tom Cook OR magic to rub off on INFORMS. Does that add any pressure?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Yes! (laugh) I do feel some pressure. I don't know how much I can do. I like to feel I can move the dial somewhat. I think one of the main things I should do is focus on a few important things and not get diffused. If I can focus on a few things for moving the organization and the profession forward, I think we will have some hope for success.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>You've talked about moving the dial. A year from now, how should we measure your success as president?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> I don't think we'll be able to measure it in a year. I hope to put in place programs that have enduring value and contribute to the discipline in an ongoing way. For instance, if we put in place a marketing program  I'm not talking about something we do for a year and stop and say everything is well and good  but a program that will continue to grow and add value year after year; I would consider that a success.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>More marketing, more practice, more applications. I sense a theme here.</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> They go hand in hand. If we do a better job of marketing operations research, we create more demand. If there's more practice, there's going to be more applications and there's going to be more demand for graduates coming out. The snowball effect is that everyone in the discipline  practitioners and those in academia  are all winners. It's frustrating that  and this is something I've been yelping about for years  we have a dynamite product to sell, but we don't know how to sell it.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br> <B>Are you optimistic that INFORMS can ultimately solve the age-old problem of marketing and selling OR?</B><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> I am, because I don't view it as that difficult. I know this problem has been around for 50 years. I guess I'm the eternal optimist. I see more and more companies starting to embrace operations research. I've been in the business of selling OR for a long, long time, and I think it's an easy sell. That's why I say we've been underachieving. When I look at the microcosm of my life, and the few data points that I have from a personal experience, I wonder, Why isn't this happening everywhere?<BR>  <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=5 border=0><br>  <img src="../barblue.gif" width=468 height=1 border=0 alt=" "><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <font face="verdana, arial, helvetica" size="1"> <CENTER><script type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script></CENTER><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <LI> <A HREF="tocfr.html" Target="_top"><I>Table of Contents</I></A><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <LI> <A HREF="../../ORMS.shtml" TARGET="_top"><I>OR/MS Today</I> Home Page</A><br>  <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <img src="../barblue.gif" width=468 height=1 border=0 alt=" "><br> <b><i>OR/MS Today</i></b> copyright � 2003 by <A HREF="http://www.informs.org/" target="_new">the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences</a>. 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