Edelman Award Finalists

More Edelman Award finalists choose IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio than any other Optimization Product

The annual Franz Edelman Award (link resides outside of ibm.com) is the world's most prestigious honor for operations research applications. And IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio is the most popular tool for Edelman Finalists.

Every year, dozens of commercial projects apply. Only five or six are selected as finalists. Roughly two-thirds of Edelman Finalists are optimization projects. Over the past decade, more than 40% of these projects have used IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio. In fact, Edelman Finalists have used IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio four times more often than any other optimization technology.

We’ve gathered some outstanding IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio results in the table below. To see much more, visit the INFORMS (link resides outside of ibm.com) operations research website, The Science of Better (link resides outside of ibm.com).

Edelman Finalist	Business Problem	ROI
AT&T (link resides outside of ibm.com)	Network traffic restoration and planning	35% reduction in capacity required Tens of millions of dollars in capital savings
Chilean Forestry	Timber harvesting and transportation	$20 million saved per year 30% reduction number of trucks needed
Continental Airlines (link resides outside of ibm.com)	Crew rescheduling	$40 million saved in one year
CSAV (link resides outside of ibm.com)	Empty Container Logistics Optimization	$75 million in 2010 and expected yearly savings of $100 million in the next two years.
Grantham, Mayo & Van Otterloo	Portfolio optimization	$4 million saved per year 85% reduction in trading; 60% fewer securities held
IHG (link resides outside of ibm.com)	Retail Price Optimization	2.7% increase in revenue
Indeval (link resides outside of ibm.com)	Transaction & Securities Settlement	52% reduction in cash liquidity requirements 26% reduction in securities requirements
Menlo Worldwide (link resides outside of ibm.com)	Air/truck network planning	$80 million saved first full year 21% reduction in expenses
MISO (link resides outside of ibm.com)	Infrastructure Asset Management	$2.1 ~ $3.0 billion in savings from 2007 through 2010.
Motorola	Procurement management	$150 million saved per year
NBC (link resides outside of ibm.com)	Advertising sales and scheduling	$50 million in additional revenue per year
Netherlands Railways	Dynamic Timetable & Railcar Management	Annual savings of US$28.5 MM
Samsung Electronics (link resides outside of ibm.com)	Semiconductor manufacturing	50% reduction in cycle time Hundreds of millions of dollars from higher prices and reduced inventory-carrying costs
SNCF	Train scheduling	$19 million saved per year
South African National Defense Force	Force and equipment planning	$1.1 billion saved per year
UPS (link resides outside of ibm.com)	Air network planning	$87 million saved first two years 10% reduction in number of aircraft used

Competition, innovation and ROI

The Franz Edelman Award recognizes achievement in operations research and the management sciences. For the past 30 years, INFORMS has presented the honor annually.

Applications put into production by industry are eligible. Some two-thirds of Edelman Finalist projects employ optimization technology. The remainder address efficiency problems using statistics, queuing theory and other forms of mathematics.

Competition is intense, and standards are rigorous. Each finalist must submit extensive documentation describing the business problem being solved; the approach used; the model or models developed; and the savings or other benefits generated.

This is an award that requires hard ROI – and IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio makes it possible.