The competitors include two Fortune 500 companies, Hewlett-Packard and UPS; competitors Bank Hapoalim from Israel and Canadian Pacific Railway; Menlo Worldwide Forwarding (formerly known as Emery Forwarding), a heavyweight freight company; and Texas Children’s Hospital.
The best cases competition recognizes outstanding examples of projects that change organizations and people’s lives. This is the 32nd year of the prestigious competition, which has been nick-named the World Series of the operations research field.
Last year, Continental Airlines and CALEB Technology were recognized for applying a disaster recovery system that showed exceptional resiliency on September 11. Previous winners include IBM, Merrill Lynch, and the AIDS Division of the New Haven Connecticut Health Department.
The Edelman competition takes place Monday, May 5 from 9:10 AM to 5:20 PM. The winner will be announced Tuesday, May 6 at 8 AM. The competition is being held at an INFORMS conference, "Creating Value in the Extended Enterprise," which takes place at the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort and Spa in Phoenix from May 4 – 6. Information about the conference is online at http://www.informs.org/Conf/Phoenix2003 The finalist papers will be published in the January, 2004 issue of the INFORMS publication Interfaces.
The INFORMS Edelman Award recognizes outstanding implemented work that has had a significant, positive impact on the performance of the client organization. The top finalist receives a $10,000 first prize.
Additional information about the finalists is at http://www.informs.org/Press/Phoenixrelease01b.htm