Press Release

Media Advisory – Local Business Consultant Speaks at Operations Research Event
 
Orlando, FL -- INFORMS, or Institute For Operations Research and Management Science, held their 2016 National Conference in April. Logility, a leading provider of advanced supply chain software solutions, appointed local Ft. Leavenworth business consultant, Jeff Pittman, to attend and speak at the conference. Mr. Pittman spoke on using Multi-echelon Inventory Optimization as a means to drive fact-based analytic decisions. These techniques have driven millions of savings annually for most of Jeff's clients and he presented case studies in how to help companies use information to better compete in the global economy.
 
Of interest to the operations research community in Ft. Leavenworth, the US Army had a team competing for one of the top Operations Research awards. INFORMS awards top honors each year in the form of two awards, the Franz Edelman award and the Daniel Wagner award. The Edelman award recognizes outstanding work in operations research, management science and advanced analytics. The Wagner prize recognizes quality and coherence of analysis used in practical applications--last year's winner was a team from the CDC, Georgia Tech and Emory where they developed a predictive machine learning framework for a vaccine's effectiveness. Jeff's own company, Logility, has won and achieved top placement for these awards for work done at P&G, Intel and Hewlett Packard.
 
The US Military was up for the award this year, as was UPS and the NY police department among others. The US Army's Communications-Electronic Command (CECOM), headquartered at Aberdeen Proving Ground,  based their award submission on the work done in Afghanistan bases on the challenge of diagnosing and optimizing power generators. The impact of this system known as CEDAT VLAR (CECOM Equipment Diagnostic Analysis Tool, Virtual Logistics Assistance Representative) is that less fuel is used translating to less resupplies and exposure for US convoys to ambushes and IED attacks. Per their abstract, "One major challenge is maintaining complex electronic weapons systems and equipment used to conduct operations against the enemy and provide critical life-support systems. On-site technical assistance for power grid optimization and system diagnostics is costly as representatives require transport via helicopter or vehicle convoy and their availability is subject to weather, terrain, altitude and threat."
 
Cost savings from VLAR application are estimated at $20 per VLAR enabled system. This helps change the Army's sustainment paradigm by using advanced optimization techniques and knowledge engineering on diagnostics to allow a leaner personnel need, lower fuel needs and better repair/supply decisions. UPS ended up taking top honors for 2016 based on a route optimization application they call the Green Mile