INFORMS News: INFORMS launches Analytics Section
Continuing its expansion throughout the analytics space, INFORMS recently launched a special interest group devoted to analytics. The Analytics Section of INFORMS (http://www.informs.org/Community/Analytics) attracted more than 300 members during its first two months of existence, immediately making it one of the largest – and certainly the most talked about – Sections in the venerable Institute that traces its roots back to World War II.
“The response has been tremendous,” says Michael Gorman, the first president of the fledgling Analytics Section. “There’s a high level of energy and excitement. We’re very bullish about creating a very powerful group.”
Anyone – members and non-members of INFORMS – can join the Analytics Section of INFORMS for free throughout the remainder of 2011. For further information or to sign up, visit http://www.informs.org/Community/Analytics/Membership.
According to its bylaws, the “Analytics Section of INFORMS is focused on promoting the use of data-driven analytics and fact-based decision-making in practice. The Section recognizes that analytics is seen as both a complete business problem-solving and decision-making process and a broad set of analytical methodologies that enable the creation of business value. To this purpose, the Section promotes the integration of a wide range of analytical techniques and the end-to-end analytics process.”
As the Section continues to grow and because analytics is such a broad field, Gorman envisions fostering special interest groups within the Section. “For example, some people are interested in predictive modeling,” Gorman says. “Some people are interested in the information systems/operations research interface, which is something that is not traditionally discussed at INFORMS conferences but is of great interest to analytics professionals. We’ve also seen a high level of interest in the process of analytics: building analytics models and implementing the results.”
Along with building membership, the next thing on the Analytics Section’s agenda is organizing three analytics tracks at the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Charlotte, N.C., this fall. The tracks will feature 14 sessions and more than 50 speakers talking on a variety of analytics-related topics. Along with the website, the Section also has a newsletter to keep members informed about news and information of interest, as well as upcoming events and networking opportunities.
Gorman, a professor of operations management and decisions sciences and the J. Robert Berry Endowed Fellow at Dayton University, worked for 10 years in the rail industry and maintains a busy consultancy with clients on transportation and logistics issues. In 2009, he was part of the CSX team that was named a finalist for the Edelman Award, the “Super Bowl of Operations Research.” The CSX project is credited with saving the railroad $2 billion over a 10-year period.
“The reason I’m so interested in analytics is that I’m not wed to one particular methodology,” Gorman says. “I like to solve business problems using analytics techniques, whether it’s a simulation problem or an optimization problem, a statistical problem, a process problem, a costing issue or a data issue. It’s all analytics. It’s all about problem solving, whatever the technique. By taking a broad view of problems, I believe you can solve them more effectively.”
