Connect with the Best Minds, Research, Applications

By Gary Koehler

The INFORMS 2001 Annual Meeting Miami Beach, set for Nov. 4-7, promises to provide valuable opportunities for open learning, discussion and exchange of ideas in the wide-ranging areas of ORMS, making the meeting a "must attend" event. Miami Beach 2001 is the largest gathering of professionals in operations research, management science and related fields within the engineering, information, decision and mathematical sciences.

Sponsorship from corporate and university sources will provide enhancements to both the scientific program and social events. Exxon Mobil, Ford Motor Company and SAP are providing significant Leadership Sponsorship, with additional funding from the University of Miami, University of Florida and Indiana University.

Networking opportunities will get off to a good start with the Sunday evening Welcome Reception held in the exhibit hall, where vendors will have the latest software and publications on view. The Monday night reception will be held at the Miami Seaquarium, featuring 38 acres of aquatic wildlife, a manatee exhibit, a special show with Lolita the Killer Whale and Pacific white-sided dolphins, and a spectacular view of the Miami skyline. An array of tropical food with a Cuban flavor will be served. New this year is a special reception on Tuesday night sponsored by and held at the University of Miami.

The primary meeting hotel is the Fontainebleau Hilton Resort, set among 20 acres of lush, tropical gardens and featuring 10 restaurants and lounges, an Oceanside spa and grotto pool. Additional sessions will be held at the nearby Wyndham Miami Beach Resort. Unique attractions in Miami Beach include the Art Deco District, which features more than 800 distinctive buildings, many restored to their original condition, several museums and miles of white sand beaches.

Tours are always a popular attraction at an INFORMS annual meeting. A tour of the production and quality assurance areas of the Motorola Radio and Pager Division is planned on Monday from 9 a.m. to noon. Another trip to the RTM Star Center (Simulation, Training, Assessment and Research) for a tour of the Ocean Vessel Navigation Simulator is scheduled for Tuesday from 10:45 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. Guests can choose from two tours: a Sunday tour to the Art Deco District and a Monday tour to the Villa Vizcaya Museum and Gardens.

Program highlights include more than 100 sessions focusing on optimization, another 100 in the manufacturing and supply chain area, and more than 50 sessions related to information systems. Other key topics include data mining, e-business and OR, e-commerce and supply chain management, OR issues in health care management, Internet auctions and air traffic management. Every INFORMS society and most sections are sponsoring sessions offering the most current research and applications.

The first version of the preliminary program went online in August. Periodic updates will follow as new sessions and papers are received and scheduled. Tom Magnanti of MIT will deliver the Omega Rho Plenary talk, and Bill Cook of Princeton University will make a keynote presentation. Michael P. Murray of Exxon Mobil and George Surdu of Ford Motor Company will discuss their approaches to planning and supply chain management. More than 20 tutorials will address financial engineering, fuzzy dynamic programming, adaptive stochastic search, constraint programming, belief functions, the analytical network process and stochastic programming. Special sessions will honor Richard Bellman and Saul Gass.

Students will find great value in many events at the meeting. The Job Placement Service and Job Fair afford opportunities for interviews with top corporations and universities. The Doctoral Colloquium, held just preceding the main meeting, aims to prepare doctoral students for faculty roles by acquainting them with issues they will encounter in academia. This year for the first time, the Doctoral Colloquium will participate in combined activities and sessions with the Industry and Teaching Effectiveness Colloquia. For information on the 2001 Combined Colloquia, go to www.bus.miami.edu/~tsloan/INFORMS/.

A special cluster on unsolved problems in industry will be of special interest to practitioners. Other industry-oriented events include the award winning presentation by the 2001 Edelman prizewinner, Merrill Lynch U.S. Private Client Group, the Isolated Practitioner Workshop and the OR in Practice poster session, which will run throughout the conference.

The 6th INFORMS Conference on Information Systems and Technology will hold a "meeting within a meeting" on Nov. 3-4. Organized in cooperation with the INFORMS College on Artificial Intelligence and INFORMS Computing Society, the theme of the conference is "IT Challenges in the E-Commerce Era." For guidelines on submitting abstracts or panel proposals, go to www.mgmt.purdue.edu/faculty/kemal/cist_MIAMI.htm.

The INFORMS 2001 Miami Beach Meeting presents sessions and events that are not to be missed! For the latest updates, go to http://www.informs.org/Conf/Miami2001/.

©Gary Koehler is the General Chair of the INFORMS 2001 Annual Meeting Miami Beach.

Abstract Deadline Extended!

You can still submit an abstract for INFORMS 2001 Annual Meeting Miami Beach. Go to http://www.informs.org/Conf/Miami2001/ - the Call for Papers link allows you to submit a paper and the Speaker Information link contains helpful information and answers to frequently asked questions.