The Environmental Protection Agency team that used math modeling to protect the drinking water systems from terrorist attacks came to the Inner Harbor on Sunday to square off against five other public and private teams working to make life better through math.
The 2008 Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Operations Research and the Management Sciences seeksto honor those unsung heroes who improve business, public service and government operations.
“We?ve begun calling it the science of better, because you can get better results,” said Barry List, spokesman for the Hanover-based Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), which holds the Edelman competition.
“If you do math modeling right ? even though most of us are more than a little afraid of math ? you can do massive amounts of good for organizations, governments, corporations.”
The drinking water safety system?s competition includes the Federal Aviation Administration?s plan to reduce airline congestion during inclement weather and a team from Stockholm, Sweden, that improved scheduling of 4,000 home health workers.
Their innovations may not make headlines, but they have saved millions, even billions of dollars, according to INFORMS. The winner will be announced tonight at a special awards banquet during its conference, titled Applying Science to the Art of Business.
Operations research is a relatively new field developed during World War II, when the U.S. military needed to make the most efficient use of C-95 transport planes to get U.S. troops into Europe and other theaters of war, according to the organization.
“It?s like a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for operations,” said Randy Robinson of Sparks, retired executive director of INFORMS and coach of the EPA team. “We?re looking for examples of the best project work in the world.”
The top finalist receives a $10,000 honorarium and will have its work published in the INFORMS journal, Interfaces. Past Edelman winners include Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Georgia Tech, whose 2007 team reduced patient suffering and health care costs from the treatment of prostate and breast cancer; Travelocity; and Merrill Lynch.
Cumulative dollar benefits from participants? projects since 1984 top the $100 billion mark, according to the organization. “They?re not competing for elegant analytical work,” Robinson said.
“The main thing we?re looking for is the impact that has already been proven, not potential future impact.”
