News Room

Following business models similar to those of AirBnB and Uber, libraries are beginning to allow people to check out useful items.  

“Economy-wide, there is significant waste associated with these cheaper items, as they tend to be poorly maintained and frequently replaced,” [INFORMS member] Saif Benjaafar said. “The concept of Library of Things has the potential of significantly reducing such waste.”

INFORMS and Syngenta named a team from Stanford University as the winners of the inaugural Syngenta Crop Challenge in Analytics. Their entry, “Hierarchy modeling of soybean variety yield and decision making for future planting plan,” received the $5,000 prize at the INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research. 

At the INFORMS 2016 Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research, UPS was presented the Franz Edelman Award for its ORION project. 

“What does ORION do? It’s basically prescriptive analytics for UPS’ 55,000 drivers in the United States (the international rollouts will come soon). Instead of following the same route every day, ORION analyzes the packages to be delivered that day and determines an optimal routing for the ‘package cars.’ The drivers are told where to go next by their handheld computers.”

The O.R. Society investigates the possibility of providing INFORMS’ Certified Analytics Professional (CAP) certifications to its members and the U.K.’s  O.R. community and provides positive feedback.