Operations Research is practiced throughout IBM, with the Research Division providing a focal point for activities in the science and the application of this field. Research and algorithm development continues in the areas of optimization, statistics, queueing theory and agent-based systems. Current application areas include vehicle routing and staffing, supply chain modeling and optimization, manufacturing planning and scheduling, transportation modeling, process industry scheduling, service industry resource planning and scheduling, airline optimization and forecasting. New initiatives include modeling and software environments for collaborative planning and electronic commerce.
Optimization methods help businesses minimize costs and respond to market forces
The July 2007 issue of the IBM Journal of Research and Development shines a light on more than a dozen business areas that are profiting from business analytics and optimization research. Fourteen papers are available in HTML and pdf formats.
Projects
- Advanced auctions for B2B negotiations
- Advanced Mathematical Software
- Agent-based simulation
- Call Center Scheduler
- Continual Optimization
- ECO
commercial airline crew pairing and assignment system
- ESSL
(Tool) Engineering and Scientific Subroutine Library
- Industrial Applications
- JML
(Tool) Journey Management Library
- Logistics optimization
- MASS
(Tool) Mathematical Acceleration Subsystem
- Merchandise & Inventory Management
- Numerical Analysis
Numerical Analysis is generally concerned with adapting mathematical methods for use on digital computers.
- Value Chain Risk and Opportunity Assessment
- WSMP
(Tool) Watson Sparse Matrix Package
Publications and presentations
- Books & Book Chapters
- Conference & Workshop Papers
- Journal Articles
- Innovation Matters: Production design and operations scheduling (PDOS) for plate products in the steel industry
- Innovation Matters: Large-Scale Strategic Budgeting for Wildfire Management
- Research Spotlight: Continual Evolution of Automation, Models and Process