ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The Tauber Institute for Global Operations at the University of Michigan was awarded the first UPS George D. Smith Prize for effective and innovative preparation of students to be good practitioners of operations research, management science, or analytics. The Tauber Institute was presented the prize at a banquet sponsored by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) in Huntington Beach, California on Monday night.

The finals competition for the prize took place at the INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics & Operations Research. INFORMS is the premier organization for advanced analytics professionals.

“I am accepting this award on behalf of the students and alumni of the Tauber Institute for Global Operations, who repeatedly demonstrate to our project sponsors, the breath-taking ROI that can be achieved through the intelligent use of OR, MS, and analytics,” said Larry Seiford, Goff Smith Co-Director of the Tauber Institute for Global Operations.

The UPS George D. Smith Prize, in its inaugural year, was created in the spirit of strengthening ties between industry and the schools of higher education that graduate young practitioners of operations research. It is awarded to an academic department or program and is accompanied by a $10,000 cash award.

When the award was announced by UPS in 2011, Randy Stashick, UPS’s Global Vice President of Engineering, explained, “UPS has a rich history of engineering and operations research, the principles of which were first introduced by our second CEO, George D. Smith. With George’s direction, operations research became ingrained in UPS culture. This award recognizes those academic leaders who embody George’s dedication to the practice and work to ensure students’ exposure to the value of operations research and its benefits to society.”

“Our program was designed from the start as collaboration between the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the College of Engineering with strong support from industry to provide our students with superb educational experiences that are directly related to the current needs of industry. Innovation can be found in the unique combination and level of training we provide including a 14-week challenging intensive real-world project experience as part of a mixed student team” says Seiford. In 2011 graduate students made up 33 cohesive teams that worked on substantive issues as part of their team project experience for sponsoring companies.

As a result, students earned or saved sponsoring companies $600 million over three years with significant operational benefits from the 14-week team projects. Sponsors included Alcoa Howmet, Boeing, Boral Limited, BorgWarner, Cardinal Health, Cisco, Dell, Dow, Exide, Federal-Mogul, Ford Motor Company, General Mills, General Motors, W.W. Grainger Inc., Masco, Meritor, Microsoft, National Grid, OfficeMax, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Raytheon, SPX, UPS, and Whirlpool.

The three finalists in the competition for the 2012 UPS George D. Smith Prize included teams from the Cornell University School of Operations Research and Information Engineering Master of Engineering Program and the Lehigh University Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. More information about the prize is available at INFORMS website.

Read University of Michigan announcement here.

About Tauber Institute for Global Operations

The Tauber Institute for Global Operations is a joint venture between the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the College of Engineering, and many industry partners to facilitate cross-disciplinary education in global operations management. In addition to broad array of core and elective courses, the innovative LeadershipAdvantage^SM Program provides students with the tools to ascend to major operations leadership roles. Well-designed and managed team projects form the cornerstone of the Tauber Institute experience and allow students to apply their knowledge to real world settings. The Tauber Institute is an inaugural recipient of the UPS George D. Smith Prize for effective and innovative preparation of students to be good practitioners of operations research, management science, or analytics. http://www.tauber.umich.edu

Contact:

Theresa Ceccarelli 734-647-0308 [email protected]