{"59993":{"#nid":"59993","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Professor C.F. Jeff Wu Elected to National Academy of Engineering","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/people\/profile.php?id=18\u0022\u003EC. F. Jeff Wu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E, Coca-Cola Chair Professor in Engineering Statistics within the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 2004. His citation reads as \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EFor conceiving and building modern systems of experimental design based on contemporary methods for parameter estimation to provide quality improvements.\u003C\/em\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EElection to the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.nae.edu\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003ENational Academy of Engineering\u003C\/a\u003E is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made \u0022important contributions to engineering theory and practice, including significant contributions to the literature of engineering theory and practice,\u0022 and those who have demonstrated accomplishment in \u0022the pioneering of new fields of engineering, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing\/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-02-25 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-02-25T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2004-02-25T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"59992":{"#nid":"59992","#data":{"type":"news","title":"The School of Industrial and Systems Engineering invites applications for the John P. Hunter, Jr. Chair, an endowed Chair","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe School of Industrial and Systems Engineering invites applications for the John P. Hunter, Jr. Chair, an endowed Chair. The Hunter Chair holder will be an internationally recognized leader who is held in the highest regard by both the academic and industrial communities. The individual\u0027s reputation and research record will bring distinction to ISyE, Georgia Tech and the John Hunter family. Criteria for evaluating candidates include: 1) possession of the highest academic credentials; 2) the ability to develop and lead a successful research program that attracts students, faculty, and sponsors; 3) participation in development of educational programs; and 4) interaction with industry to ensure the application and usefulness of his\/her research. The holder of the Hunter chair will enjoy a generous annual budget to support his\/her research program.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe School of Industrial and Systems Engineering is the largest such program in the United States and has consistently been ranked the number one program in industrial\/manufacturing engineering by US News and World Reports.  Women and underrepresented minorities are encouraged to apply.  Further information about the School can be found at our website: \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\u0022 title=\u0022http:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E. This position is an academic, tenure-track position.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EPlease send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, and three letters of reference to:\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESearch Committee for the Hunter Chair\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nc\/o Chelsea C. White III\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSchool of Industrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAtlanta, Georgia 30332-0205\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech is an Equal Education and Employment Institution and a unit of the University System of Georgia.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-03-11 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-03-11T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2004-03-11T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"59991":{"#nid":"59991","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Wavelet Bootstrapping: Statistical Technique Helps Researchers Gain More Information from Single Data Run","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFor certain classes of data that may be very expensive or difficult to obtain, a new statistical technique may provide useful information from a single data run by allowing meaningful re-sampling. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe technique, known as \u0022wavelet bootstrapping\u0022 or \u0022wavestrapping,\u0022 has applications in the geophysical sciences, bioinformatics, medical imaging, nanotechnology and other areas. It can also be useful for rapidly obtaining information from small data sets in such applications as medical diagnostics.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWavelets are mathematical functions that have become increasingly important to researchers because of their ability to analyze data sets that are difficult to understand using traditional techniques such as Fast Fourier Transform. For instance, signals within noisy data recorded in the time domain can become more meaningful when analyzed in the wavelet domain.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWavestrapping was pioneered by University of Washington researchers, who applied wavelet transforms to an established statistical re-sampling technique known as bootstrapping, which is used to extract additional information from single data runs. The marriage of bootstrapping and wavelets offers a new tool for the analysis of data sets that would otherwise be difficult to study because of correlation and time-dependency issues.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The new thing here is re-sampling, but not in the time domain, which would be nearly impossible because of the strong dependence of data or correlation of data,\u0022 said \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/faculty-staff\/profile.php?entry=bv20\u0022\u003EBrani Vidakovic\u003C\/a\u003E, professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology\u0027s School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. \u0022By transferring the data to the wavelet domain, applying re-sampling methods and then returning the re-sampled data as variants in the time domain, you can then proceed as if you had a data ensemble rather than a single run.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EVidakovic discussed his research on validating wavelet bootstrapping strategies and assessing their variability bounds at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Seattle. His presentation \u0022What Does a Single Run Tell about the Ensemble?\u0022 was part of a session \u0022Wavelet-Based Statistical Analysis of Multiscale Geophysical Data\u0022 held on February 16.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Sometimes scientists have a single measurement and they are unable to get another measurement,\u0022 Vidakovic explained. \u0022Sometimes they would like to have an ensemble of measurements with similar boundary conditions so the heterogeneity caused by external factors - such as different regimes, times of day or climate conditions - are taken into account. Wavestrapping can help make inferences from a single run.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOne example might be a study of atmospheric turbulence in which an additional flight to gather data under similar conditions could be impossible. \u0022Atmospheric scientists are very excited about wavelets because not only are they local and able to efficiently describe organized structures in turbulence, but they are also able to assess the self-similarity and scaling indices of turbulence,\u0022 Vidakovic said.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn such instances, converting the data into a wavelet domain before re-sampling can produce information for which error bounds can be reliably assessed, Vidakovic said. Though the bootstrapping technique is controversial, he believes it offers important opportunities when used with appropriate data sets.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022This is very effective when data in the time domain are not good for bootstrapping because of dependency,\u0022 he said. \u0022It can solve one difficult problem, and in that respect it is new and exciting.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWavestrapping was proposed and developed by Don Percival and other researchers at the University of Washington\u0027s Applied Physics Lab. Vidakovic\u0027s research, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, builds on that work in assessing the technique\u0027s validity and where its use is appropriate.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003ESome examples of wavestrapping applications include:\u003C\/em\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cul\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003ERapid analysis of changes in pupil diameter to reveal clues about the health of patients. Using measurements taken 21 times per second, Vidakovic is helping Georgia Tech researchers Julie Jacko and Francois Sainfort analyze data that may provide quick detection of specific medical conditions.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003EStatistical study of new types of nanometer-scale materials. \u0022Nano materials science is increasingly multiscale because people are looking at the problem at different scales,\u0022 said Vidakovic. \u0022The modeling should therefore be done at different scales because the materials are very different at the different scales.\u0022\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003EAnalysis of genomic data, especially in the rapid determination of which genetic sequences are coding and which are not.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003EMedical imaging, such as the detection of details in mammography data where small differences in calcification shapes are important to diagnosis.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003C\/ul\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EWavelets offer advantages over traditional statistical analysis techniques, including:\u003C\/em\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cul\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003EAbility to remove noise from complex data sets;\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003ESensitivity to the fractal nature and self-similarity of data;\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003EAbility to minimize correlation and time-dependency of data;\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003ELocality of the analysis and ability to handle multi-scale information; and\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003EComputational simplicity, which permits faster analysis.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003C\/ul\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAlthough the beginnings of wavelets can be traced back almost a century, their wide use began only about 15 years ago when new wavelet bases were discovered and their implementation was connected with fast-filtering computational procedures.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The interest in wavelets is their speed and locality,\u0022 said Vidakovic. \u0022Locality is the most important, because many natural phenomena are non-stationary and very local. Wavelets are able to economically describe phenomena that are inhomogeneous. For some phenomena, it would be impossible to make sense of the data without wavelets.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWavelets also help researchers with a major problem of the computer age - large volumes of data mixed with noise. \u0022Their dimension reduction and ability to deal with huge data sets are also strengths of wavelets,\u0022 he added. \u0022Very nasty data can be de-noised almost in real-time by selecting a few of the important wavelet coefficients that can retain the main trend in the signal.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMany different wavelets exist, and selecting the right ones is a vital part of developing the new technique, Vidakovic said. \u0022Wavelets are not a miracle tool for everything,\u0022 he warned. \u0022But if the data are amenable to wavelet analysis, then they can be very helpful.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cstrong\u003ERelated Website: \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/lhci\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003ELaboratory for Human-Computer Interaction and Health Care Informatics (HCI Lab)\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nReprinted with permission from the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/gtresearchnews.gatech.edu\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech Research News \u0026amp; Publications Office\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-03-16 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-03-16T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2004-03-16T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"59990":{"#nid":"59990","#data":{"type":"news","title":"WSJ Feature: Did You Hear the One About the Salesman Who Traveled Better?","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETraveling salesmen star in more jokes than almost any other occupation, but William Cook doesn\u0027t let that distract him.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EA mathematician at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/faculty-staff\/profile.php?entry=wc115\u0022\u003EProf. Cook\u003C\/a\u003E is one of hundreds of researchers who, since the 1930s, have wracked their brains over the puzzle known as the traveling-salesman problem. It asks: What\u0027s the shortest itinerary a salesman can follow to visit all the stops on his route?\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIf our Willy Loman has to make only three or four stops, the optimal route is easy to figure out. But once he adds a few dozen, the number of possible sequences grows exponentially, and the computer time it would take to calculate every possibility grows into the decades. As a result, after three mathematicians solved the problem for 49 cities in 1954, it took until 1971 to solve it for only 15 more. But Prof. Cook and three colleagues broke the problem wide open in the 1990s, solving it for 13,509 cities in 1998 and for 24,978 a few weeks ago. That feat took 67 computer years. (You can see the optimal paths at \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.math.princeton.edu\/tsp\/vlsi\/index.html\u0022\u003Ewww.math.princeton.edu\/tsp\/vlsi\/index.html.\u003C\/a\u003E)\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhile not even the busiest salesman has a route that big, the problem has become a boldface celebrity in the business world because all manner of practical problems involve the basic question, what is the best way to do something? Applications range from scheduling cable-TV service calls and routing parcel-delivery trucks to drilling holes in a circuit board, where you want to minimize how far the drill, like the salesman, must travel.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFaster computers are still not fast enough for this task, because such problems have zillions of possible combinations, notes Michael Trick of Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. UPS, for one, has upward of 1,500 pick-up\/delivery facilities and sorting centers. It would take millennia of computer hours to solve its routing problems using the traditional problem-solving methods. So, scientists in \u0022operations research\u0022 (a hybrid of math, engineering and computer science) now are exploiting what Prof. Trick calls \u0022profound insights into the mathematics of the problem.\u0022 In other words, they\u0027re figuring out clever shortcuts the computers can take.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThese insights take the form of algorithms, a sort of mathematical recipe. \u0022We\u0027re developing algorithms that are 10,000 times faster than the ones we used 15 years ago,\u0022 says Irv Lustig, an operations researcher at ILOG Inc., Mountain View, Calif. \u0022Now we can say, given the data, here is the probably-best answer.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAn algorithm he developed for ILOG, which sells algorithm-packed custom software, tackled the National Football League\u0027s 2004 schedule. He had to juggle 256 games among 32 teams, subject to multiple constraints. There had to be a nationally appealing game every Monday night and at least one must-see match-up every Sunday, for example, and he couldn\u0027t send a team on the road for weeks at a time.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EDr. Lustig\u0027s algorithm created thousands of schedules that fit these constraints in a fraction of the time it took by trial-and-error computing. Even better, it can tweak a schedule in less than a day if, say, the NFL decides that a Giants-Redskins game simply won\u0027t do for Week 8 (it\u0027s Week 2). In the past, making that change would produce a domino effect taking days to fix.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMany of the new algorithms emerged from advances in a relatively young field of math called linear programming. Despite its name, linear programming is not a kind of software-writing. Instead, it\u0027s a way to solve optimization problems. Among the most powerful algorithms in linear programming is one that could use some help from a branding consultant, but for now is called the \u0022interior-point method.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EImagine that every possible solution to a problem is represented as a point on the surface of a million-faceted diamond. The best solution is the one at the top. The challenge is to reach it. Traditionally, you\u0027d do that by climbing (mathematically) from point to higher point along the outside of the diamond. The interior-point method lets you zoom up the inside. Depending on the number of facets on the diamond, that may let you find the solution more quickly.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThanks to abstruse breakthroughs like this, operations research (OR) has scored in more than the NFL. To eliminate backtracking and overlapping routes, Waste Management Inc. solved what you might call a traveling garbage-truck problem. Using an optimization algorithm to reroute its fleet, WMI eliminated 761 trucks, saved $91 million in annual operating costs and still hauled the trash on time.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESo-called fractional-fleet services needed a similar mathematical rescue. These companies promise customers who own, say, one-quarter of a business jet that they can depart from anywhere within four hours. The easiest way to do that is to have a plane at every airport their customers use. But that is a good way to bleed cash. With operations research, Bombardier Flexjet was able to cut crew levels by 20%, while getting 10% more daily flights out of each of its aircraft.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBombardier and WMI are among the finalists in a competition run by Informs, the professional group for operations research. The winner will be announced next week.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E- You can e-mail me at \u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:sciencejournal@wsj.com\u0022\u003Esciencejournal@wsj.com\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-04-23 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-04-23T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2004-04-23T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"59989":{"#nid":"59989","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Tech Alumnus Selected for NASA\u0027s Astronaut Class of 2004","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ENow that NASA has set its sights on sending a manned mission to Mars, Shane Kimbrough is hoping he\u0027ll be blasting off to the red planet. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EA Georgia Tech alumnus and Atlanta-native, Kimbrough was named today as one of 11 astronauts tapped to be part of NASA\u0027s Astronaut Class of 2004. The astronauts will be NASA\u0027s first since President George Bush announced its new vision for space exploration in January.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Once I finish my first year of astronaut training, I hope to be assigned to several technical jobs so I can improve myself, professionally,.\u0022 he said. \u0022But then I\u0027d be thrilled to take on any space mission * even to the moon or Mars.\u0022 \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EKimbrough, 36, will serve as a mission specialist. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EKimbrough is an Army major and currently works for NASA as a flight simulation engineer on the Shuttle Training Aircraft at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Kimbrough graduated from Georgia Tech with a master\u0027s degree in Operations Research in 1998. He also graduated from The Lovett School in Atlanta. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAs an Army pilot, he was trained to fly both airplanes and helicopters but was assigned to helicopters. He served in the Gulf War as a platoon leader. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EKimbrough also taught math at West Point, including calculus and statistics. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThough his career has been focused on serving his country, Kimbrough says the opportunity to serve as an astronaut fulfills a childhood dream. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022I have been fascinated by space travel since I was a kid. I want to explore the unknown,\u0022 Kimbrough said. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EKimbrough and the other 10 candidates will report to NASA\u0027s Johnson Space Center this summer to begin their training. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EOther candidates chosen to be included in NASA\u0027s astronaut class of 2004:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cblockquote\u003E* Joe Acaba, a mission specialist-educator, 36, is a science and math teacher at Dunnellon Middle School in Dunnellon, Fla. \n\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E* Ricky Arnold II, mission specialist-educator, 41, is a science and math teacher at the American International School in Bucharest, Romania. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E* Randy Bresnik, pilot, 36, is a Marine Corps major from the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, Calif., where he served as an operations officer and F\/A-18 pilot. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E* Chris Cassidy, mission specialist, 34, a Navy lieutenant commander, is an oceanographer. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E* Jim Dutton, pilot, 35, is an Air Force major and F\/A-22 test pilot based at Edwards Air Force Base in California. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E* Jose Hernandez, mission specialist, 41, is an electrical engineer at NASA\u0027s Johnson Space Center in Houston. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E* Tom Mashburn, mission specialist, 43, is a flight surgeon at Johnson Space Center. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E* Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, mission specialist-educator, 29, is a science teacher and coach at Fort Collins High School in Fort Collins, Colo. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E* Bobby Satcher Jr., mission specialist, 38, is an assistant professor at Northwestern University\u0027s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E* Shannon Walker, mission specialist, 38, is an engineer at Johnson Space Center. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech has a proud history in space exploration. Ten astronauts have earned degrees from Georgia Tech, another three graduates have been selected as candidates for future missions and another astronaut is a former Tech faculty member.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/vision\/space\/preparingtravel\/ascan2004.html\u0022\u003EMore information can be found at the NASA website.\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-05-07 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-05-07T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2004-05-07T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"59987":{"#nid":"59987","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Honeybees and the Internet :: Professor Craig Tovey featured on The Economist","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EHONEYBEES want to make honey, while internet host providers want to make money. And the rhyme is not the only thing to link honeybees and internet host providers, who operate vast warehouses full of server computers on behalf of their customers. Sunil Nakrani of Oxford University and \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/faculty-staff\/profile.php?entry=ct3\u0022\u003ECraig Tovey\u003C\/a\u003E of the Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta, have recently developed what they believe is an efficient way of organising internet servers, by mimicking the behaviour of honeybee colonies.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe unpredictability of internet traffic (sudden surges of shoppers or stockmarket trading; the ups and downs of an internet auction) gives firms which run servers quite a headache. To maximise their profit, they have to juggle their computers between different applications in order to adapt to changing levels of demand. Only one web-application can be loaded on to a computer at one time, and switching between applications incurs a penalty of five to seven minutes of downtime while the computer is reconfigured.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EHoneybees have a similar problem. Patches of flowers vary in quality, so a colony needs to \u0022decide\u0022 how many bees will forage at each patch and how long they will forage, in order to maximise the rate of nectar collection.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMillions of years of evolution have provided the bees with a pretty good solution. Around one-fifth of the bees in a hive are employed as nectar collectors. Their job is to zip back and forth to flower patches, gathering batches of nectar. On returning to the hive, they transfer their takings to one of the stay-at-home food-storer bees, who then stash it in a honeycomb.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EA nectar-collecting bee judges how good its flower patch is, relative to the patches being visited by its hive-mates, by seeing how long it takes to find an unemployed food-storer bee. If it takes ages, then the forager concludes that its patch is nothing special, and that most of the other forager bees must have had successful runs, too. But if there is a plethora of food-storer bees ready to take the nectar, then the forager realises that it has struck lucky.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EUsing this information, the forager decides whether its flower patch is worthwhile. If so, it signals to others to follow it back by doing the famous waggle dance. The length of this dance indicates how profitable a flower patch is likely to be.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EDr Nakrani and Dr Tovey have exploited the honeybees\u0027 strategy and applied it to the problems of internet hosts. By comparing individual servers to foraging bees, and customer requests to flower patches, the two researchers have developed a \u0022honeybee\u0022 algorithm for internet-server \u0022hives\u0022. Instead of waggle-dancing, a server produces an \u0022advert\u0022, which it sends to the other servers in the hive. The duration of this advert reflects the importance and profitability of that server\u0027s customers. Other servers that read the advert act like worker bees following a waggle dance-judging on the basis of the advert, and of their own recent experience, whether to switch from the customers they are currently serving to the new ones being served by the server that produced the advert.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EHoneybees and internet servers share similar problems right down to the finest level of detail. For example, the downtime penalty incurred when a computer is switched from one web-application to another can be compared to the trade-off for a honeybee that is switching flower patches-an activity that usually requires several attempts before a profitable new patch is located.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETo see whether their analogy is useful, Dr Nakrani and Dr Tovey tested the honeybee algorithm against the so-called greedy algorithm currently used as the basis for the allocation of servers by most internet host providers. A greedy algorithm is backward looking. It divides time into fixed periods and allocates servers to customers for a period by working out what would have been the most profitable arrangement in the preceding one.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhen internet traffic was highly variable, the honeybee algorithm outperformed greedy by as much as 20%. If the traffic became more uniform, then the greedy algorithm began to outperform honeybee. However, most internet traffic is, indeed, highly variable. That suggests Dr Nakrani and Dr Tovey might be on to something. As is often the case with human inventions, nature got there first.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-05-16 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-05-16T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2004-05-16T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"59988":{"#nid":"59988","#data":{"type":"news","title":"ISyE Participates in 2004 Komen Race for the Cure","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFor the third year in a row, ISyE participated in the Susan Komen Race for the Cure, held this year on Saturday, May 8. The Race for the Cure is a 5K race\/walk, the proceeds of which go to the breast cancer research programs of the Susan B. Komen Foundation . \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThis year, ISyE teamed up with Hemophilia of Georgia (HoG) . Adopting the name Georgia Tech HOGS, the team had thirty-one members, a large increase over years past. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EParticipating from ISyE this year were Jane Ammons, Carmella Bell, Doug Bodner, Marcia Chandler, Trudy Cron, Sheila Devezin, Patti Parker, Lorraine Shaw and Yvonne Smith. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAs part of the race activities, the team solicited donations for the Komen Foundation. All told, the team raised over $1,600 for breast cancer research.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/intranet\/apps\/gallery\/Komen-Race-2004?page=1\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EView Additional Photos of the Event\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-05-18 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-05-18T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2004-05-18T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"59985":{"#nid":"59985","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Optimizing Radiation Therapy :: Software Applies Mathematics and Engineering Principles to Medicine","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThrough externally-applied beams or \u0022seed\u0022 implants, radiation therapy provides a valuable tool for treating cancer. But its effectiveness depends on the ability to target cancer cells with appropriate radiation doses while sparing healthy tissues. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAssociate Professor Eva Lee uses mathematical optimization techniques originally developed for the industrial world to help doctors produce the best results from radiation therapy. Here, she holds an ultrasound image of a prostate (photo by Gary Meek).\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETo read the article in its entirety, \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/gtresearchnews.gatech.edu\/reshor\/rh-ss04\/c-radiation.html\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Eplease visit Georgia Tech\u0027s Research Horizons online\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-08-19 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-08-19T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2004-08-19T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"59986":{"#nid":"59986","#data":{"type":"news","title":"ISyE Takes the Team Prize at ASA StatBowl","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech\u0027s ISyE team took home the winner\u0027s trophy at the American Statistical Society\u0027s Stat Bowl, held at the August Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) in Toronto. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe team consisted of Ph.D. students Abhyuday Mandal, Zhiguang Qian, and Andrew Smith. Smith was also honored as Individual Runner-up. Ten universities competed in Stat Bowl.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMandal was the first to commit himself to the competition, at the invitation of Mark Payton, Stat Bowl\u0027s organizer from Oklahoma State University. He talked his roommate, Qian, into joining him. It wasn\u0027t a hard sell. \u0022He told me if I participated I\u0027d get a $500 reimbursement (for conference fees),\u0022 says Qian. All competitors received the reimbursement.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESmith was a last minute addition to the team when an extra slot opened up. \u0022It was flattering for me,\u0022 he says. \u0022I came in there at the last minute. It was completely unexpected for me to play, let alone win something.\u0022 Perhaps it was his attire; he competed in shorts and a t-shirt, while his competitors wore professional garb.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ENone of the Tech students cracked their books for the competition, which has two rounds. The first, or screening round, was a written quiz. \u0022Basically a statistics quiz,\u0022 says Mandal. \u0022They asked different questions about history, current research, or people who have had an influence in the field.\u0022 Those who made the cut got to come back for the Jeopardy-style buzzer round. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022It was a fun thing,\u0022 continues Mandal. \u0022Some of our faculty attended the final to give us support. The room was full, an audience of 60 or so.\u0022 Team scores were determined by combining individual scores. The questions were by no means consistent in difficultly, ranging from the complicated to lightweights such as, \u0022Where is next year\u0027s conference?\u0022 Qian got the right state, but struggled to name the city. He finally responded with the only city in Minnesota that he knew: Minneapolis. He was correct. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMandal commented that winning \u0022is an honor to the school and to us. We are very happy to get the trophy.\u0022 Smith received a plaque for his individual efforts.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EStat Bowl, formerly known as College Bowl, was established in 1992 at the ASA Winter Conference in Louisville. Starting in 1994, it was conducted every year until 1999. After a gap of three years, it was successfully reincarnated at the 2003 JSM in San Francisco, with several enhancements.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-09-21 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-09-21T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2004-09-21T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"59983":{"#nid":"59983","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Bill Rouse Named Director of Tennenbaum Institute","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EATLANTA (September 24, 2004) * William B. Rouse, the H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart Chair of the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, has been named executive director of the new Tennenbaum Institute, which will focus on enterprise transformation.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe campus-wide Tennenbaum Institute, established with a $5 million gift from distinguished Georgia Tech alumnus Michael Tennenbaum, will help both private and public enterprises to keep up with * and lead * constant changes in technology and in the marketplace.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Tennenbaum Institute\u0027s focus will be on understanding and supporting * via best practices, methods and tools * strategic and operational change to transform existing private and public enterprises to become more cost-effective and competitive. The institute will partner with academic, corporate and government sector organizations and experts to develop business practices and shape organizational cultures for sustained economic growth.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ERouse has more than thirty years of experience in research, education, management, marketing, and engineering related to individual and organizational performance, decision support systems and information systems. In these areas, he has consulted with more than 100 large and small enterprises in the private, public and non-profit sectors, where he has worked with several thousand executives and senior managers. He founded and led two software companies prior to his return to Georgia Tech in 2001. Rouse has served on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and, in visiting positions, on the faculties of Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands and Tufts University. He received his B.S. from the University of Rhode Island, and his S.M. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe School of Industrial and Systems Engineering will form a search committee to identify a successor for Rouse, who will continue to serve as chair until this successor can assume the chair\u0027s position.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-09-24 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-09-24T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2004-09-24T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"59984":{"#nid":"59984","#data":{"type":"news","title":"RealOpt helps health departments halt outbreaks","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAtlanta (September 20, 2004) * Imagine that a terrorist has just released the smallpox virus in Atlanta, and suddenly there\u0027s a race against time to vaccinate and treat every last man, woman and child in metro Atlanta before the deadly virus can spread.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn a bioterror scenario such as this, the speed at which emergency health care facilities treat patients can mean the difference between life and death for thousands (or even millions) of people. And the logistics of such a large-scale emergency plan are dizzyingly complex.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBut Eva Lee, a professor of industrial and systems engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has created a computer program that is up to the task.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBased on a clinical model created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Lee developed the program, called RealOpt*, to help U.S. state, city and county healthcare departments organize the most efficient plan for treating infectious illness, whether it\u0027s a natural or man-made outbreak.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhile government health departments have emergency plans in place, it is difficult to test a plan\u0027s efficiency against the urgency and sheer number of patients an outbreak would create. And when a severe outbreak of influenza starts to spread through the population, treatment facilities are faced with a number of problems as they attempt to treat or vaccinate many thousands of patients in just a few days.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EHow many doctors will be needed? How many nurses? How long will it take frightened or unprepared patients to fill out paperwork? How will infected patients be separated from healthy patients?\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe CDC, recognizing that local public health departments needed guidance on what human resources would be required to treat the affected population, created a model that could assist in this effort. Then Lee, who is also an associate professor at the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University, and her Georgia Tech team used the CDC model as a guide to build a new, more powerful program.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ERealOpt can be used to prepare for a possible outbreak, as well as for emergency re-assignment of health care workers within the clinic and between clinics during an actual outbreak. By determining their preparedness, health departments will have a thorough estimate of what resources and funds they will need to treat their communities before an actual outbreak occurs.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe program takes the numerous variables associated with an emergency health care facility\u0027s treatment of a very large group of people, and through simulation and optimization, pinpoints the most efficient way to move patients through the facility. Using the program, a health care department can determine the most efficient facility layout, the number of health care professionals needed in certain areas, the number of vaccinations needed and the time it will take to treat patients.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to its role in planning, one of RealOpt\u0027s significant advantages is its ability to process data in real time as the emergency treatment occurs. As patient flows fluctuate, the program can reallocate the facility\u0027s resources in a fraction of a second, sending more doctors or nurses to one station or more attendants to the paperwork processing area.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe program will be tested by health agencies in several states and was recently installed in Georgia. Installation is also scheduled for North Carolina. While the program is still in the testing phase, it will soon be available free to any government health department that requests it from Georgia Tech.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe next phase of the project, which is already underway, will expand the scope of the program to include an even more complex problem * how to quickly and efficiently get thousands or millions of patients to treatment facilities. The program will puzzle out the best locations to set up emergency treatment facilities based on roads and population density. These facilities can include anything from a school gymnasium to a football stadium.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThis phase of the program is expected to be ready for testing in three to six months, Lee said, and a future phase will include simulations of the spread of infectious disease through the population and within treatment clinics.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-09-24 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-09-24T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2004-09-24T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"59982":{"#nid":"59982","#data":{"type":"news","title":"POSITION ISyE SCHOOL CHAIR ANNOUNCEMENT","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nCOLLEGE OF ENGINEERING\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe College of Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology is seeking nominations and applications from qualified individuals for the position of Chair of the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. The successful candidate will hold the H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart Chair of Industrial and Systems Engineering. The School has an annual budget of $14.8M and is the largest industrial engineering program in the country. It has a student body of 928 undergraduate, 198 master\u0027s, and 197 Ph.D. students, and 58 full-time faculty members. The School\u0027s diverse faculty is actively engaged in research at the national and international level. Research program areas include optimization, manufacturing, logistics, stochastic systems, engineering economic decision analysis, engineering statistics, simulation, health systems, and human-integrated systems. Much of the research is done through centers such as the Manufacturing Research Center and The Logistics Institute (TLI). Innovative programs include The Executive Master\u0027s in International Logistics, TLI, and TLI Asia Pacific. The School has an endowment of $24.3M. A recent facilities expansion has more than doubled the School\u0027s total space to further support the various research efforts of students and faculty members. More information on the School can be found at \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\u0022 title=\u0022www.isye.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ewww.isye.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ECandidates for this position must have an earned doctorate and national\/international recognition in their specific discipline based on a proven record of excellence in academic and professional scholarly achievements. The successful candidate should have strategic skills and vision to lead the School toward higher levels of excellence within a multi-disciplinary and high-technology environment; be able to establish a successful working relationship with federal, state and private funding agencies; work with the faculty and Georgia Tech administration to raise funds from private and public sources; and maintain a close relationship with alumni of the School. The Chair reports to the Dean of the College of Engineering and is responsible for all administrative, budgetary and personnel decisions within the School. The successful candidate will be expected to provide evidence of fiscal responsibility and exhibit excellent leadership and management abilities, particularly interpersonal, team-building, and effective communication skills.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ENominations and applications will be accepted until the position is filled.  Candidates should send a curriculum vitae and other supporting documentation including the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of five references to\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E Dr. Ward Winer, Chair, ISyE Chair Search Committee Georgia Institute of Technology\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSchool of Mechanical Engineering Atlanta, GA 30332-0405\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nTel: (404) 894-3200 Fax: (404) 894-1658\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nEmail: \u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:ward.winer@me.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Eward.winer@me.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Institute of Technology is a unit of the University System of the State of Georgia. Georgia Institute of Technology is an Equal Education\/ Employment Opportunity Institution and encourages applications from and nominations of women and underrepresented minorities.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-10-21 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-10-21T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2004-10-21T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"59979":{"#nid":"59979","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Multidisciplinary center to help businesses stay ahead of change","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn business markets driven by constant technological and commercial change, successful companies and industries must ceaselessly reinvent themselves. But rather than reacting to change, businesses can anticipate and seize advantage from technology and industry shifts to build effective and innovative business models, shared by companies large and small.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETo pioneer the next step in enterprise transformation, Georgia Tech announced the creation of the Tennenbaum Institute, the first multi-disciplinary center of its kind, uniting academic, government and corporate experts to create industry-shaping business models. This approach demands a holistic view of industries and world markets to help companies remain competitive.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EEstablished through a $5 million gift from Georgia Tech alumnus Michael Tennenbaum, the Tennenbaum Institute will address both private and public sector enterprises in areas such as aerospace, automotive, banking, computing, defense, education, health care, non-profits, pharmaceuticals, retail, telecommunications and transportation.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAs a long-time veteran of Wall Street, Michael Tennenbaum has helped numerous ailing companies back from the brink of a crisis. Tennenbaum primarily invests in companies that are in desperate need of change, and he saw a need for a different approach to enterprise transformation * a need that a multidisciplinary initiative like the Tennenbaum Institute could fill.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022I think it\u0027s going to be a big success. It\u0027s a strong idea, and it\u0027s housed in a good spot,\u0022 Tennenbaum said. \u0022I think that education has gotten so specialized that there\u0027s a big opportunity to build more knowledge by combining different specialties, rather than just to keep drilling down deeper into one specialty.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Tennenbaum Institute and its members will work together to research the interdisciplinary nature of enterprise transformation, identify and evaluate the best practices for accomplishing transformation and disseminate knowledge through publications (hardcopy and online), meetings (workshops and forums), education (graduate and executive) and outreach (extension services).\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The Tennenbaum Institute represents an opportunity for Georgia Tech to excel at multidisciplinary research and education in its broadest sense and consequently impact our understanding of major economic and social issues as well as contribute to these issues being addressed,\u0022 said William Rouse, executive director of the Tennenbaum Institute and the H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart chair of the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Our job is not necessarily to solve a business or organization\u0027s problems today,\u0022 he said. \u0022Our job is to anticipate its emerging problems in a five year or so time horizon and to research the best ways of understanding and addressing those problems.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EDollar General Corp. will be the Institute\u0027s first corporate member and will bring its issues, concerns, knowledge and skills to the Tennenbaum Institute\u0027s exchange and debate.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-11-01 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-11-01T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2004-11-01T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"59980":{"#nid":"59980","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Esogbue Named INFORMS Fellow","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/faculty-staff\/profile.php?entry=ae7\u0022\u003EAUGUSTINE O. ESOGBUE\u003C\/a\u003E, Professor and Director of the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/iscl\u0022\u003EIntelligent Systems and Controls Laboratory\u003C\/a\u003E, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, was recently elected FELLOW of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS).  Esogbue was cited for his \u0022outstanding contributions, achievements, and service that have advanced the profession of operations research and the management sciences.\u0022  Esogbue is also a Fellow of AAAS, IEEE, and the Nigerian Academy of Science.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-11-05 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-11-05T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2004-11-05T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"59981":{"#nid":"59981","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Best Paper Award at INFORMS to ISyE Student","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAbhyuday Mandal, an ISyE PhD student, won the Best Student Paper Award at the INFORMS Meeting in Denver this October. The QSR (Quality, Statistics, Reliability) Section of INFORMS sponsors the competition.  About 20 competitors submitted papers, and the QSR Section chose four for presentation at the Meeting. Mandal based his presentation on the written paper, \u0022SELC: Sequential Elimination of Level Combinations by Means of Modified Genetic Algorithms\u0022. This paper was a joint effort with Jeff Wu (thesis advisor) and Kjell Johnson (Pfizer statistician).\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-11-05 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-11-05T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2004-11-05T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"56540":{"#nid":"56540","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Frontline Feature: Georgia Tech Announces Logistics Scholarship Recipients","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWinners will receive a $20,000 scholarship to be applied toward tuition for the program. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThis year\u0027s recipients are:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cblockquote\u003E\n\u003Cul\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003EHeidi Cerrud (Panama), Procurement Officer-Regional Logistics Unit International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003EGabriella Toro (Venezuela), Lean Manufacturing Coordinator for Dana Venezuela\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003EBublu Sarbani Thakur-Weigold (Germany), Supply Chain Management Consultant, Innovation Diffusion for Hewlett-Packard\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003EAlec Ang (Singapore), Supply Chain Logistics Director, Asia Pacific for DHL International\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022It\u0027s truly an honor to be chosen for this opportunity,\u0022 said Cerrud. \u0022Through my participation in the EMIL Program, I expect to grow as a logistician, better enabling me to support Red Cross\/Red Crescent\u0027s relief operations to disaster victims.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The EMIL Scholarship winners have each demonstrated exceptional dedication and industry expertise over the course of their careers,\u0022 said John Vande Vate, EMIL Executive Director. \u0022It\u0027s this continued cross-pollination of professional expertise and international perspectives that makes EMIL the most unique logistics masters program in the world.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETo qualify, scholarship applicants had to reside and do-business in Asia-Pacific, Latin America or Europe, as well as be admitted to EMIL as a degree-seeking student with program start date of at least February 2004. Scholarship applicants were required to have demonstrated career success, a clear potential for leadership and a desire to fully participate in EMIL\u0027s intense educational experience. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe 18-month masters program keeps employees on-the-job while teaching them practical techniques for decreasing logistics costs and improving supply chain efficiencies.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022caption\u0022\u003EBy Brian Albright, \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.frontlinetoday.com\/frontline\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EFrontline Solutions\u003C\/a\u003E magazine\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-03-19 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:06:15","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-03-19T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2004-03-19T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"56539":{"#nid":"56539","#data":{"type":"news","title":"InformationWeek Feature: Help For Tackling Global Supply-Chain Issues","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn an increasingly interconnected world, it\u0027s critical for businesses to ensure that their global supply chains are operating at peak efficiency. A research project under way at Georgia Tech\u0027s School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, undertaken in conjunction with Intel as part of the school\u0027s executive master\u0027s program in international logistics, is attempting to build a distributed supply-chain simulation model to test communications over the Internet among factories, warehouses, and other participants in supply chains using High Level Architecture, a software infrastructure for building a federation of many simulators, each modeling a piece of a composite system. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The goal of the research is to create a means of testing diverse supply-chain strategies and operational tactics under different scenarios in order to discover which strategy is likely to achieve the best performance,\u0022 says Terri Herod, managing director of the executive master\u0027s program. \u0022Eventually, the simulation methodology developed could be integrated with rough-cut analytic tools for faster analysis and decision-making.\u0022\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIntel supplied $30,000 worth of hardware in October to support the research. It\u0027s one of two new research projects taking place as part of the 4-year-old executive master\u0027s program; the other one is exploring solving problems around contract management issues. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe 18-month program in which students meet at different locations around the world in five two-week sessions draws students primarily from the VP and director level, with an average of 13 years of experience in the industry, many from Fortune 500 organizations. Heidi Cerrud, procurement officer at a Red Cross Regional Logistics Unit, is participating in the program. Cerrud is teamed with executives from Ability\/Tri-Modal Transportation Services, Exel, Intel, and Intradeco on a global project related to using radio-frequency identification technology in the supply chain. What she\u0027s learning as part of the team\u0027s project could have implications for her work at the Red Cross, Cerrud says. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022This is a really useful project for the Red Cross. During a disaster, many things can happen to put shipments in peril. By using RFID technology to track our goods, we can avoid losing large shipments of cargo,\u0022 Cerrud says. The Red Cross is working on a project using RFID, she says. \u0022RFID is in the pre-implementation phase at the Red Cross, after which it is expected to be tested using an actual cargo shipment.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp class=\u0022caption\u0022\u003EBy Elena Malykhina,  \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.informationweek.com\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EInformationWeek \u003C\/a\u003E magazine\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-03-24 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:06:15","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-03-24T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2004-03-24T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"56538":{"#nid":"56538","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Supply \u0026 Demand Chain Executive - \u0022Red Cross Reinforcing Supply Chain Skills\u0022","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.ifrc.org\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EThe International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies\u003C\/a\u003E is working to reinforce its supply chain by sending its officers through the Executive Master\u0027s in International Logistics (EMIL) program at Georgia Tech.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.emil.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EThe EMIL program\u003C\/a\u003E was instituted in 2000 at Georgia Tech\u0027s Industrial \u0026amp; Systems Engineering School as an international supply chain master\u0027s degree program designed to give executives skills to develop new solutions to improve supply chain efficiencies.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe program has drawn participants from industry, but also from the nonprofit and government sectors, to learn about the latest supply chain trends and technologies, such as radio frequency identification (RFID).\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Since emergency situations are often precarious, I need to be as educated as possible on supply chain and logistics processes,\u0022 said Heidi Cerrud, current EMIL participant and procurement officer at a regional logistics unit for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Participating in the program has expanded my global network and helped me identify several potential alliance partners. Through these alliances and EMIL program content, the Red Cross is jump starting its new emergency operations strategies that utilize revenue management and RFID.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe program said it offers a \u0022hands-on\u0022 learning environment where participants complete in-class assignments within the context of the current business environment, and also take part in a global project.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022It is the program participant\u0027s genuine interest in improving the supply chain and the cohesive work environment that make the EMIL program so attractive,\u0022 said Dr. John Vande Vate, EMIL executive director. \u0022When you bring together motivated executives from the world\u0027s leading organizations to learn and to problem-solve, the environment becomes intoxicating and the results are limitless.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-04-22 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:06:15","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-04-22T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2004-04-22T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"56528":{"#nid":"56528","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Offshoring: Bringing Retailing Back into Balance","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Chinese have a saying, \u0022wu j\u0026iacute; b\u0026igrave; f?n,\u0022 which translates roughly to \u0022When the pendulum reaches one extreme, it must swing back the other way.\u0022 Recently, the pendulum appears to be reaching an extreme on the issue of offshoring,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  the practice of moving work to countries with low wage rates. And it will continue\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  as long as savings from lower wage rates outweigh the additional supply chain\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  costs engendered by the added time and distance to market. In many cases, companies\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  seem to be using offshoring beyond the point that makes economic sense.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EEvidence of these excesses is most apparent in retailing, an industry that\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  represents 40% of the U.S. economy and is the nation\u0027s largest employer. For\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  example, Wal-Mart\u0027s \u0022everyday low prices\u0022 have squeezed other retailers\u0027 margins\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  and driven them to seek lower initial costs, or first costs, from their suppliers.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  As a result, over the past three decades the numbers of consumer goods imported\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  from distant, low-cost sources have grown substantially, which has helped to\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  drive the trade balance from around a $1 billion surplus in 1973 to a deficit\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  of $500 billion in 2003. Over the same period, markdowns at general merchandise\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  retail department stores have grown from single digits to over 30% of sales\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  today. Although lost sales from out-of-stock merchandise are harder to quantify,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nit\u0027s reasonable to assume that such losses have grown similarly.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E These numbers suggest that U.S. retailers and their suppliers have not adequately\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  balanced labor costs against other supply chain costs. Rather, they are concentrating\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  on trying to lower the first costs they pay for goods-an effort that is indirectly\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  hurting their profit margins. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E The real question for retailers is not whether offshoring is ethically or\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  politically correct. Instead, they need to ask whether they are correctly balancing\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  the impact of offshoring on cost and revenue in making sourcing decisions \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E  The Notion of Total Delivered Cost\u003Cbr \/\u003E By\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  relying on traditional notions of total delivered cost, retailers sometimes\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  fail to account for the impact that off-shore manufacturing has on revenues,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  given extended time and distance to market. This impact is further magnified\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  by the phenomenon of SKU proliferation resulting from consumer demand for greater\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nproduct variety.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E In its 1998 annual report, the Federal Reserve of Dallas estimated that the\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  number of running-shoe styles rose from about five in the early 1970s to about\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  285 in the late 1990s. The most astounding examples of SKU proliferation come\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  from manufacturers who use mass customization as a key market strategy. The\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  same Federal Reserve report estimated that Dell offered consumers more than\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  16 million combinations of computers, and BMW claims that it produces more\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  than 1017 variations of its 7 Series automobile. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E The increased product variety makes forecasting more complex, if not impossible,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  and also makes offshore manufacturing even more difficult to manage. BMW, for\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  example, is adept at forecasting overall demand for its 7 Series but could\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  not estimate sales for each of the 1017 different combinations. Instead, manufacturers\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  like Dell and BMW understand the cost implication of time to market and work\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  hard to shorten the order-to-delivery cycle through such strategies ad postponement. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E Knowing When to Stay Home\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe key to effective sourcing decisions relies on the manufacturer\u0027s ability\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nto balance longer lead time against lower first costs. Savvy supply chain management\u003Cbr \/\u003E\ncan help retailers deal with margin squeeze and the demand for product variety\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nthrough a combination of strategies that may include, but is not limited to,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\noffshoring.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E Two retailers are frequently cited for their success in sourcing for maximum\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  profitability: World Co. Ltd. of Japan and Zara, owned by Inditex and headquartered\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  in Spain. Both have maintained margins by developing their supply chains to\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  reduce lead times and trim the product cycle time from the six-months-out approach\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  of traditional fashion retailers to as short as six weeks. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAt World Co., supply chain speed comes\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    from careful planning, information systems that permit continuous forecast\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    updating, and production processes that can respond rapidly to change. One\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    factor in the speed of this supply chain is the company\u0027s decision to maintain\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    domestic production. Although the cost of labor in domestic factories is\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    significantly higher than that of overseas counterparts, World Co. can respond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nmore quickly to the frequent changes of the fashion world.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn Europe, Zara has achieved similar success\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    by continuously tracking customer preferences so that it can revise products\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    throughout their life cycles. Zara offers considerably more products than\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    similar companies. It produces about 11,000 distinct items annually compared\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    with 2,000 to 4,000 items for its key competitors. The company can design\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    a new product and have finished goods in its stores in four to five weeks;\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    it can modify existing items in as little as two weeks. Shortening the product\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    life cycle means greater success in meeting consumer preferences.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EZara\u0027s speed is the result of a combination\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    of elements, including manufacturing its more fashion-sensitive items locally.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    Because these are the riskiest items, they are also produced in smaller quantities\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    so that they can be reordered more frequently on the basis of sales. A full\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    40% of Zara\u0027s finished garments are manufactured in Spain, and two-thirds\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    of the remaining items are sourced from nearby European countries and North\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    Africa.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn the case of World and Zara, proximity\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    between manufacturing and retail outlets is important in achieving a competitive\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    advantage that translates into stronger profits. Still, outsourcing to a\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    more distant location can and does have a place in retailing, even in the\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    rarified world of high fashion.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E  Deciding by Demand\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  Sourcing decisions should reflect the uncertainty\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  in demand for the product. Higher volume items with predictable demand can be\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  sourced further from their outlets than lower volume, high-risk products.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn short, a pair of standard work boots\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    does not require the same design flexibility as a pair of Manolo Blahnik\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    sandals, nor does it command the same price point. It\u0027s the kind of item\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    that can be off-shored for maximum cost efficiency because style is not likely\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    to change markedly over time.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESplitting the Difference\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAnother approach to economic sourcing is to\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nsegment the manufacturing process, sourcing basic production processes further\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nfrom the retailer and putting the finishing touches on products at locations\u003Cbr \/\u003E\ncloser to their outlets.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFor example, Li \u0026amp; Fung (which derives\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    75% of its turnover from the apparel industry) sets up and manages supply\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    chains for such clients as Kohl\u0027s, Reebok, Disney, and Meijer, in which a\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    single product is assembled from components sourced from several locations.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    By creating flexible supply networks, these organizations can allow for this\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    kind of integrated sourcing, including the ability to redeploy raw materials\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    as needed and reduce lead times in response to market changes.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E The Bottom Line\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nNo one solution works in every situation.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nCutting first costs may look like a sure way to bolster margins, but the added\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nlead time often leaves too much or too little inventory, sacrificing profits\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nto markdowns or lost sales. As retailers increasingly share the cost of discounting\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nand overstocking, there is some hope that suppliers will do a better job of balancing\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nthe cost\/revenue tradeoff. But until retailers incorporate the value of speed\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nand proximity into their commercial terms, suppliers\u0027 options will remain limited.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nFor now, offshoring is but one in a portfolio of strategies for maintaining margin\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nand profitability. Perhaps as suppliers start to shoulder more of the costs of\u003Cbr \/\u003E\ndiscounting and overstocking, they will find ways to negotiate commercial terms\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nthat better reflect the impact of time to market and help drive the pendulum\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nback toward balance.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-07-01 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:06:15","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-07-01T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2004-07-01T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"56536":{"#nid":"56536","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Speed: The Solution For Margin Myopia","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMargin has long been a key measure of how well a business is doing, and an increase in margin has been seen as the route to success. But focusing on margin alone may prevent companies from tapping into one of the most powerful opportunities to improve their performance: speed. Speed can turn even low margin products into big business.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EYou need only look at Wal-Mart and Tiffany \u0026amp; Co. to see that margin is neither the only -- nor the best -- yardstick for success. Wal-Mart stores have a margin of less than 4%, and Tiffany \u0026amp; Co. commands an 11% margin. But Wal-Mart\u0027s speed -- the revenue it can generate with each dollar of investment -- gives it the higher return on investment (ROI). Tiffany generates only $.96 per dollar of capital invested in its high-end merchandise and upscale stores, while Wal-Mart yields nearly $3.50 in revenue on the same dollar investment. So Wal-Mart\u0027s ROI is more than 13% compared with Tiffany\u0027s of less than 11%. The reason? Speed. Wal-Mart is simply faster at in turning dollars invested into dollars in revenue.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESpeed is even more important than margin for companies that want to capitalize on emerging markets, where margin often must be sacrificed because consumers have less discretionary income and are price sensitive. Yet just because the margin is low doesn\u0027t mean that opportunity isn\u0027t there. Consider the fact that Colgate sells roughly a billion toothbrushes in China each year, and Unilever sells more than $8 billion of brand-name consumer products in Africa, Turkey, the Middle East, and Latin America.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETo create effective strategies for increasing speed, you first have to break down and understand the elements of speed by focusing on components of the capital invested. While supply chain executives do have influence on the capital tied up in good will, property, and plant and equipment, they are primarily responsible for the capital tied up by operations. In particular, supply chain activities influence the cash-to-cash cycle-the time elapsed from when a company pays for raw materials until it collects revenues from the sale of those materials as finished goods.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESupply chain activities that improve order and invoice accuracy, for example, do influence receivables, but generally credit terms on sales and purchases are related more to financial arrangements than to operations. On the other hand, supply chain activities directly influence the time it takes to transform raw materials into delivered finished goods -- a factor represented by the inventory component of the cash-to-cash cycle.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOne company doing an excellent job of reducing raw materials inventories is Nokia. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E Nokia has reduced raw material inventory through such efficiencies as its global supply web linking Nokia suppliers and plants. This system enables the company to stay in close contact with suppliers and logistics service providers for demand forecasting and order management and tracking. Although Nokia insists that suppliers own component inventory until it is used, the company also supports vendor-managed inventory, which allows the vendor to determine how much inventory is kept on site. And Nokia tracks inventories not only for its own operations but for its suppliers as well. In addition, Nokia uses a single logistics service provider to coordinate all the in-bound transportation to each manufacturing site so that the company can consolidate shipments and exploit economies of scale. The result is a flexible and responsive environment where speed is achieved by reducing days of raw material inventory.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Toyota manufacturing system operates in a similar manner, but with the added element of small, frequent deliveries. In fact, Toyota assembly plants hold only about four hours worth of component supplies. These are replenished every 37 minutes or so from a cross-docking operation that loads the trucks not with individual parts but with complete car sets -- just enough for the next 37 minutes of production. This strategy has the double advantage of keeping raw material inventories low and of mitigating the risks of supply interruptions. If something happens to one or even a few trucks, the plant can continue to operate smoothly until the next vehicle arrives.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhen it comes to work-in-process inventory--transforming raw materials on hand into finished goods--two examples come to mind: Northrop Grumman and Samsung. What makes them even more interesting is that they represent extreme ends of the spectrum.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ENorthrop Grumman participated in the Lean Aerospace Initiative and launched its own Lean Enterprise Initiative to apply Toyota\u0027s method for manufacturing automobiles to the much more complex defense industry (an automobile has about 4000 components compared with the hundreds of thousands of components of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, like those Northrop Grumman builds). By implementing a traditional lean production approach, the company was able to reduce throughput time for major systems by 21% to 42%. And they didn\u0027t stop there. Northrop also implemented a Supplier Lean Initiative to help its vendors benefit as well. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBeyond the obvious differences in the scale of their products, Samsung differs from Northrop Grumman in that manufacturing in the semiconductor industry is not linear. Wafers return again and again to the same equipment as the different layers of the product are added. Samsung has applied the Theory of Constraints, which focuses on identifying and managing bottleneck processes. It realized that keeping equipment use high on non-bottleneck processes simply produces more inventory, not greater value. So Samsung makes sure that all of the other operations in the process keep pace with the bottleneck.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFinally, speed can be achieved by accelerating the movement of finished goods to the customer. When forecasts are poor and supply doesn\u0027t match demand, companies are faced with the unpleasant options of turning the excess goods into scrap or selling at deep discounts, which erodes profits. The goal is to have supply match demand in ways that enhance rather than erode profits.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EGeneral Motors is aggressively reducing its order-to-delivery cycle through the way it builds its vehicles. Its objective is to sell the vehicles people want, when they want them, and at full price. The company has focused on reducing the queue of orders waiting to be built, and rescheduling production so that customer orders are moved to the front of the line. In the process, GM has reduced its order-to-delivery window from roughly 80 days in 1999 to between 20 to 30 days today.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThat\u0027s absolutely critical in an industry where BMW is closing in on a 10-day order-to-delivery capability. In the past, BMW was a build-to-order operation. Production didn\u0027t begin until there was an order. Today, the company builds painted bodies for stock and pulls from that stock to build vehicles to order. This simplifies the manufacturing process and, most importantly, shortens the order-to-delivery window.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe ability of companies to increase speed, especially by reducing days in inventory, pays off in their overall success as much if not more than increasing margins. And that can help attract investor dollars for the future. Some of the companies we have mentioned in this article provide compelling examples. Compare Samsung\u0027s 406% total shareholder return from January 1, 2000, to January 1, 2004, with that of its competitors Sony (total shareholder return 0%) and Micron (total shareholder return -46%).\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOf course, there are other factors at work as well. The fact that Siemens AG enjoyed a 76% total shareholder return from January 1, 2000, to January 1, 2004, compared with Nokia\u0027s 10%, Motorola\u0027s -96%, and Ericsson\u0027s -69% may have more to do with currency and diversification issues than with supply chain performance. Similarly, the fact that Northrop Grumman stock performance has been poor compared with its competitors over the past four years probably has more to do with the $19 billion in good will the company carries on its balance sheet from some ill-timed acquisitions. But while stock performance and total shareholder return depend on many aspects beyond speed and margin, speed is the most direct way supply chain executives can influence them. You can\u0027t fix everything, but you can fix speed.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-10-01 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:06:15","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-10-01T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2004-10-01T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"56530":{"#nid":"56530","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Speed: The Solution For Margin Myopia","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMargin has long been a key measure of how well a business is doing, and an increase\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  in margin has been seen as the route to success. But focusing on margin alone\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  may prevent companies from tapping into one of the most powerful opportunities\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  to improve their performance: speed. Speed can turn even low margin products\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  into big business. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EYou need only look at Wal-Mart and Tiffany \u0026amp; Co. to see that margin is\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  neither the only -- nor the best -- yardstick for success. Wal-Mart stores\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  have a margin of less than 4%, and Tiffany \u0026amp; Co. commands an 11% margin.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  But Wal-Mart\u0027s speed -- the revenue it can generate with each dollar of investment\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  -- gives it the higher return on investment (ROI). Tiffany generates only $.96\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  per dollar of capital invested in its high-end merchandise and upscale stores,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  while Wal-Mart yields nearly $3.50 in revenue on the same dollar investment.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  So Wal-Mart\u0027s ROI is more than 13% compared with Tiffany\u0027s of less than 11%.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  The reason? Speed. Wal-Mart is simply faster at in turning dollars invested\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  into dollars in revenue.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESpeed is even more important than margin for companies that want to capitalize\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  on emerging markets, where margin often must be sacrificed because consumers\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  have less discretionary income and are price sensitive. Yet just because the\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  margin is low doesn\u0027t mean that opportunity isn\u0027t there. Consider the fact\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  that Colgate sells roughly a billion toothbrushes in China each year, and Unilever\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  sells more than $8 billion of brand-name consumer products in Africa, Turkey,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  the Middle East, and Latin America. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETo create effective strategies for increasing speed, you first have to break\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  down and understand the elements of speed by focusing on components of the\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  capital invested. While supply chain executives do have influence on the capital\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  tied up in good will, property, and plant and equipment, they are primarily\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  responsible for the capital tied up by operations. In particular, supply chain\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  activities influence the cash-to-cash cycle-the time elapsed from when a company\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  pays for raw materials until it collects revenues from the sale of those materials\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  as finished goods. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESupply chain activities that improve order and invoice accuracy, for example,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  do influence receivables, but generally credit terms on sales and purchases\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  are related more to financial arrangements than to operations. On the other\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  hand, supply chain activities directly influence the time it takes to transform\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  raw materials into delivered finished goods -- a factor represented by the\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  inventory component of the cash-to-cash cycle. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOne company doing an excellent job of reducing raw materials inventories is\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  Nokia. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Ctable border=\u00220\u0022 width=\u0022100%\u0022\u003E\n\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\n\u003Ctd\u003E\n\n\u003C\/td\u003E\n\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\n\u003Ctd\u003EDays of Inventory\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n            from 2001, 2002 and 2003 for Nokia and competitors Motorola, Ericsson,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n            and Siemens. These companies are quite different. Siemens, for example\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n            makes everything from cell phones to hydroelectric plants. But the\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n            trend is clear: Nokia\u0027s days of inventory are significantly lower\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n            and decreasing.\u003C\/td\u003E\n\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\n\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  Nokia has reduced raw material inventory through such efficiencies as its global\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    supply web linking Nokia suppliers and plants. This system enables the company\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    to stay in close contact with suppliers and logistics service providers for\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    demand forecasting and order management and tracking. Although Nokia insists\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    that suppliers own component inventory until it is used, the company also\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    supports vendor-managed inventory, which allows the vendor to determine how\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    much inventory is kept on site. And Nokia tracks inventories not only for\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    its own operations but for its suppliers as well. In addition, Nokia uses\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    a single logistics service provider to coordinate all the in-bound transportation\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    to each manufacturing site so that the company can consolidate shipments\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    and exploit economies of scale. The result is a flexible and responsive environment\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    where speed is achieved by reducing days of raw material inventory. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Toyota manufacturing system operates in a similar manner, but with the\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  added element of small, frequent deliveries. In fact, Toyota assembly plants\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  hold only about four hours worth of component supplies. These are replenished\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  every 37 minutes or so from a cross-docking operation that loads the trucks\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  not with individual parts but with complete car sets -- just enough for the\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  next 37 minutes of production. This strategy has the double advantage of keeping\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  raw material inventories low and of mitigating the risks of supply interruptions.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  If something happens to one or even a few trucks, the plant can continue to\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  operate smoothly until the next vehicle arrives. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhen it comes to work-in-process inventory--transforming raw materials on\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  hand into finished goods--two examples come to mind: Northrop Grumman and Samsung.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  What makes them even more interesting is that they represent extreme ends of\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  the spectrum. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ENorthrop Grumman participated in the Lean Aerospace Initiative and launched\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  its own Lean Enterprise Initiative to apply Toyota\u0027s method for manufacturing\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  automobiles to the much more complex defense industry (an automobile has about\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  4000 components compared with the hundreds of thousands of components of a\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, like those Northrop Grumman builds). By implementing\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  a traditional lean production approach, the company was able to reduce throughput\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  time for major systems by 21% to 42%. And they didn\u0027t stop there. Northrop\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  also implemented a Supplier Lean Initiative to help its vendors benefit as\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  well. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp; \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Ctable border=\u00220\u0022 width=\u0022100%\u0022\u003E\n\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\n\u003Ctd\u003E\n\n\u003C\/td\u003E\n\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\n\u003Ctd\u003EDays of Inventory\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n            from 2001, 2002, and 2003 for Northrop Grumman and competitors Boeing,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n            Lockheed, and General Dynamics. Northrop Grumman has dramatically\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n            reduced days of inventory over the past 3 years.\u003C\/td\u003E\n\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\n\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBeyond the obvious differences in the scale of their products, Samsung differs\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  from Northrop Grumman in that manufacturing in the semiconductor industry is\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  not linear. Wafers return again and again to the same equipment as the different\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  layers of the product are added. Samsung has applied the Theory of Constraints,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  which focuses on identifying and managing bottleneck processes. It realized\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  that keeping equipment use high on non-bottleneck processes simply produces\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  more inventory, not greater value. So Samsung makes sure that all of the other\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  operations in the process keep pace with the bottleneck. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp; \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Ctable border=\u00220\u0022 width=\u0022100%\u0022\u003E\n\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\n\u003Ctd\u003E\n\n\u003C\/td\u003E\n\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\n\u003Ctd\u003EDays of Inventory\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n            from 2001, 2002, and 2003 for Samsung and competitors Sony, Panasonic,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n            and Micron. Samsung consistently maintains fewer days of inventory.\u003C\/td\u003E\n\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\n\u003C\/table\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EFinally, speed can be achieved by accelerating the movement of finished goods\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  to the customer. When forecasts are poor and supply doesn\u0027t match demand, companies\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  are faced with the unpleasant options of turning the excess goods into scrap\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  or selling at deep discounts, which erodes profits. The goal is to have supply\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  match demand in ways that enhance rather than erode profits. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EGeneral Motors is aggressively reducing its order-to-delivery cycle through\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  the way it builds its vehicles. Its objective is to sell the vehicles people\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  want, when they want them, and at full price. The company has focused on reducing\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  the queue of orders waiting to be built, and rescheduling production so that\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  customer orders are moved to the front of the line. In the process, GM has\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  reduced its order-to-delivery window from roughly 80 days in 1999 to between\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  20 to 30 days today.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThat\u0027s absolutely critical in an industry where BMW is closing in on a 10-day\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  order-to-delivery capability. In the past, BMW was a build-to-order operation.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  Production didn\u0027t begin until there was an order. Today, the company builds\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  painted bodies for stock and pulls from that stock to build vehicles to order.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  This simplifies the manufacturing process and, most importantly, shortens the\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  order-to-delivery window. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe ability of companies to increase speed, especially by reducing days in\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  inventory, pays off in their overall success as much if not more than increasing\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  margins. And that can help attract investor dollars for the future. Some of\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  the companies we have mentioned in this article provide compelling examples.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  Compare Samsung\u0027s 406% total shareholder return from January 1, 2000, to January\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  1, 2004, with that of its competitors Sony (total shareholder return 0%) and\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  Micron (total shareholder return -46%). \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOf course, there are other factors at work as well. The fact that Siemens\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  AG enjoyed a 76% total shareholder return from January 1, 2000, to January\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  1, 2004, compared with Nokia\u0027s 10%, Motorola\u0027s -96%, and Ericsson\u0027s -69% may\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  have more to do with currency and diversification issues than with supply chain\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  performance. Similarly, the fact that Northrop Grumman stock performance has\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  been poor compared with its competitors over the past four years probably has\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  more to do with the $19 billion in good will the company carries on its balance\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  sheet from some ill-timed acquisitions. But while stock performance and total\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  shareholder return depend on many aspects beyond speed and margin, speed is\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  the most direct way supply chain executives can influence them. You can\u0027t fix\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  everything, but you can fix speed. \u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-11-02 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:06:15","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-11-02T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2004-11-02T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"56533":{"#nid":"56533","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Choosing an SCM Graduate Program","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAn increasing number of companies now expect their top executives to understand supply chain management. To feed this need, many universities have added supply chain education programs to their curriculums.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFor some executives, a professional certification program is all they need, but for many, a full-fledged graduate degree program is appropriate. And executives now have numerous programs to choose from. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETerri Herod, managing director for Georgia Tech\u0027s Executive Master\u0027s in International Logistics, offers these 10 tips \u0026#8212; based on input from supply chain professionals \u0026#8212; for selecting a graduate program.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Col\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDecide what you want\u003C\/strong\u003E. If you are new to logistics, or are taking on new responsibilities, a quick, two- to five-day program, or a short-term professional certification may be all you need. These programs offer in-depth coverage of a specific supply chain topic. For professionals who seek 18- to 24-month programs in logistics, a good variety offering traditional Master\u0027s of Science degrees are available.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMake sure the program format fits your schedule\u003C\/strong\u003E. Working full-time and pursuing a graduate degree can be challenging. Be sure to find a program that accommodates your busy schedule. Some programs let you take classes on weekends, or within intensive, week-long residence sessions. Don\u0027t let geography limit your options. By including a combination of classroom, distance learning, and group projects, a master\u0027s degree program can help you mitigate any interruptions to your work and home life.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDetermine how an executive masters degree will advance your career\u003C\/strong\u003E. Your executive education should directly benefit your career, for example, garnering an increase in salary, or a move into management upon graduation. If you have your sights set on a particular career path, be sure this degree will help you achieve your objectives. Check with your company\u0027s human resources department to determine how a master\u0027s degree will impact your internal career opportunities. Invest your time in a program that will be a business and personal differentiator.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EChoose a top-ranked school with a good reputation\u003C\/strong\u003E. Many executive education programs are available today. Learn from the best. What gets noticed on your resume is a top-ranked university with a good reputation in the field. Check out the quality of the school and its program stakeholders - instructors, presenters, and curriculum advisory board. These team members will greatly shape your experience.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EReview the curriculum\u003C\/strong\u003E. Look for a well-rounded curriculum that fits your long-term career objectives. The curriculum should target the executive level, and provide you with the knowledge and tools for better decision-making. Choose a program that allows you to master a globally extended supply chain, and translate it into a financial and\/or business context.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEnsure relevance to the real world and your job\u003C\/strong\u003E. Make sure the program extends beyond the discussion of theories, and requires the application of strategies and principles that can quickly impact real-life organizations. Your executive master\u0027s program should combine classroom and real-world corporate interaction that will help make business decisions. Beyond the rigors of analytical solutions, the program should give you exposure to executives at other companies, have ample group projects, utilize case studies, and allow you to bring real-world problems from the marketplace into the classroom.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EExamine the class makeup\u003C\/strong\u003E. Networking and learning from your peers is an often overlooked but valuable component of your executive education experience. Look for a program whose participants have at least five years of experience, and are preferably higher-level executives. The program participants should come from different industries and countries, and have a variety of supply chain knowledge, giving you the advantage of different perspectives.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EInterview alumni\u003C\/strong\u003E. The program\u0027s alumni are the best source for finding out what your executive experience will be like. Not only will this give you firsthand information, it will also offer additional insight into the class participants. Ask the program director if you can talk to a few alumni members. Speak with someone who comes from your industry, and someone in an unrelated industry. This provides the best opportunity to ask the tough questions and get unbiased answers.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESee if other opportunities to collaborate with the university exist\u003C\/strong\u003E. Universities can be a great resource for you and your company. Not only can you recruit interns and employees, but you can also sponsor faculty guest lecturers at your company, and participate in research projects and executive level forums. Do you come across business strategies or issues that need in-depth analysis? You can often utilize university students to build models and employ analytical tools to solve these problems. Find out how the university you will attend collaborates with its business partners.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EExamine the strength of the alumni network\u003C\/strong\u003E. After you graduate, the alumni network enables you to stay connected to other ambitious, resourceful, industry professionals. As new business challenges arise in your career, you don\u0027t have to reinvent the wheel; you can call on these resources for input and insights to help you out. Be sure the university has a strong program that allows you to continue learning from your alumni network.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Col\u003E\u003C\/ol\u003E\u003C\/ol\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-12-01 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:06:15","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-12-01T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2004-12-01T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"56531":{"#nid":"56531","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Old World, New Labor Lessons","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeneral Motors recently waded into battle with its workers in Europe, specifically\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  in Germany-a struggle that, on the surface, looks much like the \u0022life-or-death\u0022 battle\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  between VW and its German workforce. The differences between these two companies\u0027\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  approaches highlight the differences between the European and U.S business\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  environments. At the heart of these differences is the fact that companies\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  in Europe are more formally and deeply integrated into the social fabric of\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  their countries. As a consequence, they view labor more as a fixed cost than\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  do their United States counterparts.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBut European labor relations are now evolving in response to two major influences.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  One is European integration. The other is increased wage competition not only\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  from China and India but also from such new European Union (EU) member countries\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  as Poland and Slovenia and EU candidates Romania and Bulgaria. In the European\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  auto industry, Japanese imports are mounting competition of the sort experienced\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBusinesses in the United States may learn some lessons from watching Europeans\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  address these changes. But both Europe and the United States already agree\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  that the buzzword of the day is \u0022collaboration,\u0022 the sharing of risks and returns\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  with supply chain partners. It only makes sense, then, to collaborate with\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  your closest and most important business partner: your workforce. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOne way to collaborate is to improve workforce morale and productivity by\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  lifting some of the employment risk from workers\u0027 shoulders. How businesses\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  approach this collaboration may hold the key to success. GM and VW\u0027s current\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  struggles with their European workforces offer an excellent illustration. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EGM to Cut Jobs\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  GM employs 63,000 people and operates 11 plants in 8 countries in Europe, including\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    multiple Opel plants in Germany, a Saab plant in Sweden, and a Vauxhall plant\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    in the United Kingdom. These operations have posted losses each year since\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    1999, and GM\u0027s share of the European auto market has dropped a full percentage\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    point to 9.2% since 2001. This past October, GM announced that it would cut\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    12,000 jobs over the next two years-nearly 20% of its European workforce-with\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    most of the cuts coming in Germany in 2005. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOpel Workers Fight Layoffs. Workers at the oldest Opel plant in Bochum,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  Germany, the likely target for more than a third of these cuts, walked off\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  the job demanding that the company rule out compulsory layoffs. Despite the\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  urgings of Opel management, union leaders, and local and national politicians,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  these workers continued their strike for six days until members of the works\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  council convinced them to return to the job. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ERestructuring: Battling for Worker Buy-In. But getting the Opel workers\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  back on the job doesn\u0027t mean that GM\u0027s labor challenges are over. Under German\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  law, the company must come to an agreement with Opel workers before it can\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  implement its cost-cutting plan. Klaus Franz, head of the general works council\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  at Opel, stated, \u0022We have two major targets-the first is no plant closures,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  the second is no forced redundancies.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFranz proposed three directions for further discussions. First, he indicated\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  that GM management would need to participate in the belt tightening. Any savings\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  plan would have to include executive pay cuts of \u0022much more\u0022 than the benchmark\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  10% that Mercedes-Benz executives agreed to in a resolution with their workforce\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  back in July. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESecond, Franz noted that while the workforce at Opel\u0027s main R\u0026uuml;sselsheim\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  facility had fallen to 5,600 from 18,000 workers over the past 15 years, the\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  size of GM Europe\u0027s managerial workforce has gone \u0022in a different direction\u0022 over\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  the same period. To facilitate reductions in management, he proposed that the\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  company revise its European restructuring, which had brought its three European\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  operations under one regional manager based in Z\u0026uuml;rich-outside the European\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  Union. Franz proposed that GM substitute the newly created \u0022European Corporation\u0022 or \u0022Soci\u0026eacute;t\u0026eacute; Europ\u0026eacute;ene\u0022 structure\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  and operate out of Brussels instead of Z\u0026uuml;rich.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThird, Franz observed that becoming a European company would significantly\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  simplify GM\u0027s legal structure. It could combine its 100 legal European entities\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  under one set of rules and a unified management and reporting system. This\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  structure would also allow European labor unions to negotiate directly with\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  GM management in Detroit. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EVW to Reduce Labor Costs\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  VW employs more than 320,000 people worldwide, 176,000 of them in Germany.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    Discounting by competitors and the strength of the Euro slashed VW\u0027s operating\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    profits by 47%, from 4.7 billion Euros in 2002 to about 2.5 billion Euros\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    in 2003, and its share price has fallen 21% this year. Consequently, the\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    company has stated the goal of reducing labor costs by 30% over the next\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    7 years. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EA Different Labor Relations Model. In contrast to GM, VW\u0027s shareholder\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  structure dictates a distinctly different approach to labor relations. The\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  state of Lower Saxony, where VW is headquartered, holds 18.2% of Volkswagen\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  ordinary share stock and controls two seats on the company\u0027s supervisory board.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  In fact, Gerhardt Schroeder, the German Chancellor, was a member of the VW\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  supervisory board when he was governor of the region. It\u0027s as if George W.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  Bush and Jennifer Granholm, the Governor of Michigan, held seats on GM\u0027s board\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  and controlled 20% of the company\u0027s shares.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAs inconceivable as that scenario would be in the United States, it is not\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  unusual in Europe. (And that helps explain why the German press felt justified\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  in leveling what I consider a ridiculous charge: that the GM shift of jobs\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  from Germany to Poland was politically motivated because of the two countries\u0027\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  different responses to the war in Iraq.) The German system reserves half of\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  the supervisory board seats for union representatives, so management is aware\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  of the realities of downsizing in Germany and knows very well that workers\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  must agree to any restructuring plans. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ELong-Term, Collaborative Change. In contrast to GM, VW\u0027s goals are\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  long-term and include no explicit statement about job cuts. Given its roots\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  in the European system, the company recognizes that it will have to collaborate\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  with its employees to determine just how it will realize the necessary savings.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAccordingly, although VW is no stranger to reductions in labor costs, these\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  reductions have typically come in the form of concessions on wages and hours\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  rather than layoffs. For example, after a $1.3 billion loss in 1993, the company\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  and the union agreed to forego planned raises in exchange for cutting back\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  to a four-day workweek, a move that reduced wages by 20% over the contract\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  period. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ELeveraging Wage Differences. In dealing with unions, VW has also been\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  able to leverage the stark differences between the 30 Euros\/hour (nearly $40\/hour)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  average wage for autoworkers in Germany and the 6 Euros\/hour the company pays\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  its workers in Slovakia. In 2000, VW announced that its upscale sport-utility\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  vehicle, the Touareg, would be built in Bratislava, Slovakia. VW personnel\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  chief Peter Hartz observed, \u0022For every car VW makes, the plants have to apply\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  to get the assignment. If Wolfsburg [Germany] wants to get a new model, it\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  must make an offer\u0022 that is competitive with VW plants in Spain, Mexico, Slovakia,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  and elsewhere. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EVW\u0027s Toran, a compact minivan, offers another example. To win production of\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  that vehicle for the VW plant in Wolfsburg, union representatives offered flexibility\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  in working hours and a commitment to repair defects in vehicles off the assembly\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  line with unpaid hours.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Outlook for European Workers \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  Things are changing rapidly for the Europeans in several significant ways.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    For one thing, Europe\u0027s expansion eastward has added to the European Union\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    10 countries with significantly lower labor costs. For another, the emergence\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    of China and India as sources of inexpensive goods and destinations for manufacturing\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    and service jobs is having a significant impact. In fact, imports from China\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    have grown significantly faster in old Europe than in the United States in\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    recent years. In addition, \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThese pressures (and others) mean that whatever the results of the GM and\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  VW negotiations with their workforces, labor in Europe faces challenges that\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  are likely to bring dramatic changes in the coming years.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOld Europe No Longer the Center. The new European Union members and\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  candidate countries have shifted the center of Europe eastward-not only geographically\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  and demographically but also economically. The GDP growth in Poland, the Czech\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  Republic, and Hungary was close to 3% in 2003 compared with 0.7% in Western\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  Europe. The eastward shift is philosophical as well. As Eastern Europe rebuilds\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  its labor market structure, it appears that it will more closely resemble the\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  Anglo-American structure than the European model.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EHigh Wages or Plenty of Work? As VW\u0027s situation illustrates, wage differences\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  are a powerful lever for gaining concessions from labor leaders. France offers\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  another good example. The country\u0027s transport union negotiated more restrictive\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  hours of service rules for their workers than those imposed from Brussels.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  This agreement applies only to French companies, however, and it proved to\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  be the \u0022last straw,\u0022 the one that drove many French transport operators to\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  relocate to places like the Czech Republic or Romania, where driver wages are\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  significantly lower. As a result, France lost about 15% of its trucking industry.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ELosing Traditional Protections. In Western Europe, integration is untangling\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  the political involvements that have protected European laborers in the past.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  The European Commission has taken Germany to court over the 44-year-old \u0022Volkswagen\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  law,\u0022 which gives Lower Saxony undue control over the carmaker by allowing\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  it to use its two seats on the supervisory board to block many company decisions.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAt the same time, larger European companies are now listing on U.S. stock\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  exchanges, which means that they must reveal their margins and profitability\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  to shareholders quarterly. So such tactics as layoffs of workers in other countries\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  to compensate for falling revenues in Europe will be harder to justify or disguise. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFacing Growing Threats from Asia. The auto industry is also facing\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  increasingly serious threats from Asian competition. Although Asian carmakers\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  command only 17.4% of the European auto market compared with their 25% share\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  in the United States, they are gaining share rapidly. September sales figures,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  for example, showed that while total European auto sales declined slightly,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  Toyota sales in Europe increased 2.3%, and Honda, Hyundai, and Mazda posted\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  gains of 12% to 30%. Europeans are just beginning to feel the pain of Asian\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  competition because European Union trade policies had kept the Japanese car\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  makers out with a complex quota system. That system was dropped at the end\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  of 1999. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAlong with the other changes we\u0027ve looked at, this Asian competition has brought\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  tougher times for European Union workers. Lehman Equity strategists note a\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  3% reduction in total payroll costs for publicly traded companies across Europe.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  And the transformation is just beginning. VW currently employs nearly 30% more\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  people than Toyota worldwide even though it produces 10% fewer vehicles. That\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  kind of labor expense just won\u0027t survive in the global marketplace. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ELessons for U.S. Employers\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  European employment structures are distinctly different from those in the United\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    States, and they will remain so. Still, in an international environment,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    we can\u0027t ignore what is happening there. Although it would be presumptuous\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    to judge GM\u0027s strategy from this distance, the company\u0027s recent tussle with\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    its European workers will probably speed VW on its path to labor reductions\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    and certainly created enmity within GM. Strong medicine may be needed to\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    fix the profitability problems in Europe, but recreating the confrontational\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    labor-management relationships typical in the United States-antithetical\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    to principles of lean business structures and kaizen (the Japanese philosophy\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    of advocating continuous improvement in both personal and professional life)-is\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n    not the right prescription.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EInstead, collaborative relationships with employees may prove the most effective\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  and profitable. For example, in 1998, Frank Russell Co. discovered that investing\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  in the public companies on Fortune\u0027s list of the 100 best companies to work\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  for and then reinvesting in the new list each year, earned 10.6% annually compared\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  with the S\u0026amp;P 500\u0027s 5.7% annual return over the same period. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EPerhaps the Old World can offer some new lessons on how to profitably collaborate\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n  with your closest supply chain partner: your workforce. \u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2004-12-02 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:06:15","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-12-02T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2004-12-02T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}