Operations Research Used to Maximize Revenue and Minimize Cost in Corporate Decision-Making: Intel Awarded the 2020 INFORMS Edelman Award

CATONSVILLE, Md., Sept. 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- INFORMS, the leading international association for operations research and analytics professionals, announced it has awarded Intel its 2020 Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Advanced Analytics, Operations Research, and Management Science for its use of operations research (O.R.) to maximize revenue and minimize cost in corporate decision-making.

Due to its scale, the complexity of its products and manufacturing processes, and the capital-intensive nature of the semiconductor business, efficient product architecture design integrated with supply chain planning is critical to Intel's success. In response to an exponential increase in complexities, Intel has used advanced analytics to develop an innovative capability that spans product architecture design through supply chain planning with the dual goals of maximizing revenue and minimizing costs. Intel's approach integrates the generation and optimization of product design alternatives using genetic algorithms and device physics simulation with large-scale supply chain planning using problem decomposition and mixed-integer programming. This corporate-wide capability is fast and effective, enabling analysis of many more business scenarios in much less time than previous solutions, while providing superior results, including faster response time to customers. Implementation of this capability over the majority of Intel's product portfolio has increased annual revenue by an average of $1.9 billion and reduced annual costs by $1.5 billion, for a total benefit of $25.4 billion since 2009, while also contributing to Intel's sustainability efforts.

"The system has been vital to improving the process of corporate decision-making, and the results have been in the billions since the system began," said George Davis, CFO of Intel. "It is an innovative, cost-effective and sustainable strategy that uses operations research and data analytics to create efficiency across the corporation."

First awarded in 1972, the Franz Edelman Award recognizes and rewards outstanding contributions of analytics and O.R. in the for- and nonprofit sectors around the globe. Each year INFORMS honors finalist teams that have improved organizational efficiency, increased profits, brought better products to consumers, helped foster peace negotiations and saved lives. Since its inception, the cumulative dollar benefits from Edelman finalist projects have surpassed $302 billion.

Intel received the Edelman Award this afternoon at INFORMS' first virtual competition.

Franz Edelman Award Finalists

In addition to Intel, four other organizations were finalists for this year's Franz Edelman Award:

• Carnival Corporation & plc for "Yield Optimization and Decision Analytics (YODA) Revenue Management System for Carnival Corporation & plc"
• Deutsche Bahn for "FEO Train Rotation Optimization Project"
• IBM for "Predictive Analytics and O.R. for IBM's Technology Services and Cloud"
• Walmart for "A Multiobjective Clearance Pricing Optimization Framework in Brick-and-Mortar Stores Using Reinforcement Learning"

Additional information about the 2020 INFORMS Franz Edelman Award finalists and competition can be found at:

https://www.informs.org/Recognizing-Excellence/2020-Edelman-Award.

About INFORMS 

With more than 12,000 members from around the world, INFORMS is the largest international association of operations research (O.R.) and analytics professionals and students. INFORMS provides unique networking and learning opportunities for individuals and organizations to better understand and use O.R. and analytics tools and methods to save lives, save money, and solve problems. 

SOURCE INFORMS