OR/MS Today - April 2001

OR/MS Today - April 2001

INFORMS News

What They're Saying About
Operations Research

Several articles in the press last winter examined the often unheralded contributions made by operations researchers and the OR field. For example:

"...A corollary of this view is that companies willing to profit from lax local environmental rules should expect to fare at least as well in the stock market as more principled companies. Yet a study in Management Science finds that Wall Street actually rewards multinationals that hew to stringent environmental standards in the developing world.

"In the study...researchers Glen Dowell, Stuart Hart, and Bernard Yeung analyzed data from the mid-1990s on the stock market performance and environmental policies of 89 major U.S. mining and manufacturing companies with production facilities in developing nations."

— Business Week, Jan. 8

"One reason for the positive green financial outlook, according to Bernard Yeung, professor of international business at New York University's Stern School of Business, is that a 'company's environmental policy is basically a manifestation of its quality mentality.'

"...Published in Management Science, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), the study found that 60 percent of the companies in the sample adhered to stringent environmental standards.

"Analysis of the sample's results showed that multinational firms that adopt high environmental standards — even in locales with lower standards — are rewarded with higher stock-market value.

"Yeung states that many companies go green voluntarily as a competitive strategy. 'Companies that can afford good environmental policies use that as a strategic tool to, say, lobby for higher standards that set competitive pressures on companies that can ill afford to do the same,' he says."

— Office.com, Feb 16

"An operations research model for centers that treat kidney dialysis patients could reduce America's high mortality rate for those with the disease while containing budget costs, according to a study published in a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).

" 'Dynamic policies that adjust dialysis based on the kind and number of patients a center can handle have the potential to improve life expectancy, in some cases by as much as 20 percent,' said Stefanos A. Zenios of Stanford University."

— NewsRx.com, Jan. 16

"Changes in flight paths resulting from 'free flight' at high altitudes could save airlines around $1 billion annually in fuel costs. At the same time, airports could double their flight operations without increasing collision risks, according to a study from Arnold Barnett of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

"The study, published in a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), concentrated on geometrical probability and collision risk avoidance in a hypothetical sector. It then applied Barnett's theory to the actual sector over Albany, N.Y. In that instance, collision risk was measured on the understanding that aircraft would maintain their five-mile separation at all times, as mandated by FAA guidelines, with emergency warnings going off in the sector's ATC center."

— World Airport Week, Feb. 13

Compiled by Barry List, public relations director, INFORMS

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