The entry guidelines state that "the purpose of the Franz Edelman competition is to call out, recognize and reward outstanding examples of management science and operations research practice in the world, with $15,000 in awards. First prize is accompanied by a $10,000 honorarium. Entrants will be expected to report on a completed, practical application and must describe results that had significant, verifiable and preferably quantifiable impact on the performance of the client organization. Send us a one- or two-page summary document that describes what you accomplished, in just enough detail to let us judge the appropriateness of your work for the competition, and a 60-word abstract of the achievement."

The entries received by the autumn deadline are vetted by an experienced panel of O.R. practitioners and academics. The aim at this initial stage is to select around 15 "semifinalists." A (physical) meeting takes place for the purposes of the selection, but those unable to attend (e.g. overseas assessors such as us) are connected by telephone. Despite our initial skepticism — around a dozen were at the actual meeting and a similar number were connected by phone — this arrangement worked surprisingly well, thanks mainly to the excellent chairing by Tom Spencer.

Each entry is voted into one of three categories: 1. recommended as a semifinalist, 2. rejected, and 3. "green apple," i.e. the application is premature as the claimed savings cannot yet be fully validated. The main criteria are clear use of O.R., full implementation and the magnitude of savings. In our experience over the last two years, the decision on most of the entries is clear-cut, so most of the discussion centers on the marginal ones. Eventually around 15 papers are selected for the semifinal stage.

The Vetting Process


The vetting process then gets more serious and detailed: Can the claimed savings be verified, and at what level in the client organization did the work impact? In both years we acted as verifiers to one of the semifinalists. This involves speaking to the O.R. team responsible for the entry (e.g. would the work stand up to scrutiny by experienced O.R. practitioners?) and also senior executives in the client organization who are not directly involved in the work (e.g. can the impact of the work be authenticated?).

This feedback is condensed into a brief evaluation report and circulated to the assessors for the finalists meeting, which is similar to the earlier meeting. Much more is at stake now, and it became apparent that additional criteria were becoming more important, together with some partisanship. An entry will be viewed more positively if an innovatory O.R. approach has been developed. The promise of a very senior executive to present the project (or receive the prize) can also have some influence, though normally chief executives would provide support via video. (A few years ago Nelson Mandela supported the entry from the South African Defence Agency — which won!) And saving lives is more important than saving money! If a verifier is convinced that her project is a good one, she will strongly support it.

Normally six finalists are chosen, but in 2004 two projects could not be separated for the sixth spot so all seven were chosen. It seems to be normal practice that the verifier of each finalist entry acts as a coach with the aim of helping to ensure that the presentation makes the maximum impact. Thus, those aspects that meet the most important criteria are brought out (in our view, magnitude of savings, organizational impact and possibly innovatory use of O.R.). Becoming a finalist is now recognized as very prestigious, and so the client organizations seem happy to provide good support for developing a polished presentation. A detailed supporting paper is also required for subsequent publication in Interfaces, which will be scrutinized and criticized by the coach.

The finalist presentations take place at the INFORMS practitioners conference each spring and are videotaped (now on DVD). Each presentation lasts 40 minutes (strictly enforced) and the judges — and only the judges — ask questions for five to 10 minutes. The order of presentation is randomly chosen. These sessions are very popular with delegates, who appreciate that high-quality O.R. practice will be described in well-illustrated presentations. And there is also the extra interest in forecasting the winner. Note that, unlike the OR Society's President's Medal competition, the Edelman audience is not invited to participate in choosing the winner.

Personal Experience


So what of our experience over the last two years? In 2003 we were invited to verify one of the semifinalists, and we received much helpful supporting information from the organization concerned. The project was clearly successful with good benefits, but we doubted that it matched up to previous finalists, so we were unable to provide a strong recommendation. It was not selected as a finalist. In 2004 we were asked to verify the entry from Philips in the Netherlands, which had impressed us at the initial stage. It involved an innovatory approach to determining global stock levels for products and subassemblies in the fast-moving electronic goods sector. It was embedded within a new "collaborative planning" approach, which involved Philips and third-party suppliers. (This aspect would have been of great interest to a United Kingdom O.R. audience but sadly not INFORMS, we were advised!)

We received strong support from senior Philips executives on the impact of the work and implementation to date, including the validation of savings of more than 5 million euros per year. Further substantial savings would be achieved by rolling out the approach to many more product lines. Given the innovatory nature of the approach (synchronized base stock, devised by one of the team, Ton de Kok of Eindhoven University, Netherlands) and this substantial support, we gave a strong recommendation. It was chosen as a finalist, to the delight of the Philips team. Subsequently we were asked to act as coach to the Philips team, which we accepted with some trepidation since we had not previously acted in this capacity — though we had both been present at some previous Edelman finalist presentations.

One of us (John Ranyard) first met the Philips team in Boston, the location for the INFORMS practitioner's meeting in April 2004 (Robert Fildes was unable to attend). Since being confirmed as finalists, the team had spent much effort on developing the presentation and writing the accompanying paper. Sunday, the day before the conference starts, is reserved for Edelman rehearsals and includes one hour for each finalist in the actual presentation room, partly to enable the recording technicians to set their levels, etc. During that day Ranyard worked with the team members on refining and improving the presentation — eight hours in total. As with most presentations, we had an opening video featuring top-level support — in our case from the chief executive of the Philips Division in which the work was carried out. The actual presentation involved just two of the team, Mathieu Clerkx, the senior client, and Ton de Kok. At the end of the rehearsal day, we were tired but satisfied.

The presentations run through the whole of the first day of the conference, and we were allocated the third slot to present our entry. We elected to sit through the first two presentations. We felt that our project could surpass the first presentation but the second one, from Motorola, was particularly impressive — it had achieved massive savings ($600 million) and included innovatory use of the Internet. We sensed that this was the one to beat.

Our turn was next, and overall it was a good presentation, though we wondered what impression we had made on the judges. Maybe we were unlucky in following the Motorola one, which may have highlighted that our savings were considerably less. On the other hand, we felt that the innovatory developments in the Philips project were strong and capable of widespread use. After sitting through some of the later presentations, we still felt that Motorola was likely to be the front-runner.

Now it was a case of sitting and waiting. Traditionally the judges retire around 6 p.m. to consider their decision, with the result being announced — to the teams only — by 10 p.m. Thus, from around 8:30 p.m. the various teams began to assemble in and around the bar area to await the verdict. Ten o'clock came and still no result — it must be close, we told ourselves. Unknowingly we had positioned ourselves close to the room where the judges were meeting, but we scarcely noticed four or five people quietly entering it. But a few moments later we heard shrieks of delight from the nearby Motorola camp, so we immediately realized that Motorola had won. This was confirmed a few minutes later. After so much effort and emotion we were disappointed, but we recognized the worth of the Motorola project, and our entry could not compete with the savings they had made.

The winner was announced publicly at the opening plenary session the following day, and the winning presentation was then repeated, this time to the whole conference. Lots of smiles and photographs this time. This was the first win for Motorola, and their delight was evident to all. As assessors and coaches, it was an enjoyable experience, despite the hard work involved. Maybe we will get involved again this year.

Some Reflections


Based on the Edelman entries, most of which originate from the United States, it is clear that recent contests illustrate some striking differences between O.R. in the U.K. and the U.S. In particular there seems to be a lack of high-profile "large" O.R. projects in the U.K., and there is, apparently, a much lower involvement of U.K. practitioners in the area of logistics and supply chain. While the ORS President's Medal contest does sometimes attract large projects, there does seem to be a scarcity in the U.K. where O.R. has (or could have) made a critical contribution. This could be because general management consultants have tended to be responsible for their project management and have chosen not to publicize them. Alternatively, the projects might not have used O.R.

With regard to O.R. and logistics, it was interesting to note the number of such papers at the main INFORMS conference. The spring conference is focussed on practice, and roughly three-quarters of the 400 delegates were practitioners. We estimate that around 40 percent of conference papers and half of the Edelman entries were in the logistics area, whereas recent ORS conferences have included few such papers. In this field in the U.K., it seems that O.R. algorithms have been incorporated into commercial software, which is used directly by specialist logistics staff, without the involvement of O.R. But the papers by U.S. practitioners at the conference demonstrated that there is still much potential for O.R. in this field. (On the other hand, there were few papers on credit and risk management and none at all on soft O.R. at the INFORMS conference.)

As a final comment, the Edelman competition gives a very positive view of the importance of O.R. to organizational success, both in industry but also in commerce and government. Such large-scale significant success stories can only attract increased interest in adopting O.R. The United Kingdom O.R. community needs to find and publicize similar projects, or, if they don't exist, we need to understand the reasons.

The 2005 Edelman Finalists The 2005 Franz Edelman Competition, presented by INFORMS and CPMS, the Practice Section of INFORMS, was held April 18 in conjunction with the 2005 INFORMS Spring Conference in Palm Springs, Calif. The results will appear in the next issue of OR/MS Today. Following is a list of this year's finalists: The Athens 2004 Olympic Committee (working with Athens University), which responded to the challenge of planning the Olympics by developing an advanced operations research- and systems dynamics-based tool. Because of the project's success, the tool is being considered for use by the 2008 Olympic Committee. Eli Lilly, a leading pharmaceutical company, uniquely turned to math modeling in reviving ALIMTA®, an antifolate cancer-fighting drug. General Motors, whose custom throughput analysis models of GM production lines saved hundreds of millions of dollars in more than 30 GM plants in 10 countries. Nanzan Educational Complex (working with its parent Nanzan University in Japan), which developed an educational planning system that operates at every level from the strategic down to the daily operational. Procter & Gamble (working with CombineNet Inc. and Carnegie Mellon University), which was presented with a potential $262 million in savings from a next-generation procurement process developed for the Fortune 500 company. Swift & Co. (working with Aspen Technology), which created a scheduling and capable-to-promise application to improve operations at the food giant. The Edelman Award recognizes outstanding implemented operations research that has had a significant, positive impact on the performance of a client organization. The top finalist receives a $10,000 first prize. The finalist papers will be published in the January 2006 issue of Interfaces.

Editor's Note: This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in the OR Newsletter. It is reprinted here with permission.

John Ranyard is external liaison manager for the same department and was formerly an O.R. manager in British Coal for 20 years.

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