EURO Management Science Strategic Innovation Prize

A lot of the entries in this blog are about significant applications of operations research in practice. EURO has a prize on Management Science Stratetic Innovation (MSSIP). Their 2007 prize will be in the area of OR/MS in Logistics. From the announcement:

The prize is intended to recognize the role of Operational Research/Management Science in Logistics. Needless to say that Logistics or Supply Chain Management is taking centre stage in Operations. In the business world, Supply Chain Management has been a crucial discipline in a global world with an increasing number of players involved in bringing even the simplest of products to the customer. It is fair to say that a separate science of Supply Chain Management has been developed in the last fifteen years (even though Logistics goes back many centuries or even millennia).

Recent events have propelled Supply Chain Management into the boardroom in some businesses but the true strategic impact of Logistics is still poorly appreciated by numerous companies. This is even more the case among policy makers. Obviously, Logistics has always been central to successful military operations and the recent dramatic tsunami in Asia has convinced everyone of the central role of Logistics in disaster response as well. In spite of this rise in attention to logistics, many organizations (public or private) have not yet taken the logical next step of reorganizing their structures accordingly.

OR/MS has been a large contributor to the newly developed science of Logistics/Supply Chain Management. But there is a lot yet to do. The MSSIP 2007 price intends to recognize the OR/MS contribution but also to encourage researchers and professionals to continue and perhaps even increase their efforts in contributing to the content as well as the recognition of Logistics/Supply Chain Management as a core discipline and function in business and society.

One unusual aspect of this award is the breadth of definition of logistics:

So we will kindly regard innovative applications of OR/MS to new or unusual Logistics situations. Think for example about risk, robustness, agility, humanitarian organizations, new products/markets/services, interfaces and integration with other disciplines like accounting and finance, and the like.

The deadline on this is March 1, 2007, so there is plenty of time to put a paper together.

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