When AI plans the plan: NVIDIA’s Edelman story

Each year, organizations from around the world demonstrate how advanced analytics and operations research are solving real problems at massive scale – and are recognized and celebrated by the INFORMS community with the Franz Edelman Award competition. Joining me today are members of the team from NVIDIA, a global leader in accelerated computing and artificial intelligence. As companies grow and their products evolve, the demand–supply networks that support them often become incredibly complex. To stay ahead of this complexity and remain responsive in fast-moving markets, organizations need smarter and more adaptive supply chain management systems. To tackle this challenge, NVIDIA developed…

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From kibble to clicks: Chewy’s path to the Edelman Award competition

Each year, organizations from around the world compete in the INFORMS Franz Edelman Award competition, demonstrating how advanced analytics and O.R. are solving real problems at massive scale. In this episode, members of the team from Chewy, the largest online pet retailer and pharmacy in the United States, share how they tackled a challenge that sounds simple on the surface but becomes incredibly complex at scale: replenishment. Using a science-driven suite of models, supported by a custom engineering platform and continuous analytics monitoring, the team transformed how Chewy manages purchase orders, safety stock, and inventory placement – all while accounting for…

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Learning to optimize … and how to bake the BEST cookies

In this episode, we’re continuing our special relaunch series by welcoming one of this year’s INFORMS Annual Meeting plenary speakers – a pioneer in the fusion of machine learning and optimization, and a leader in advancing AI for real-world engineering challenges. Pascal Van Hentenryck is a Fellow of INFORMS and AAAI, and has made groundbreaking contributions to constraint programming and optimization systems that are still used in industry decades later. His current research focuses on integrating AI with mathematical optimization to solve incredibly complex and large-scale problems in energy, transportation, supply chains, and more. At the 2025 INFORMS Annual Meeting,…

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2024 Franz Edelman Award finalist: McDonald’s China

Welcome back to Resoundingly Human, the podcast brought to you by INFORMS, the leading association for professionals and students who apply science, math, technology, and analytics to make smarter decisions for a better world.  I’m your host Ashley Kilgore and thank you for joining me for the next episode in a special series highlighting the 2024 Franz Edelman Award finalist teams! The Franz Edelman Award is awarded each year to an organization that has made a transformative contribution to society, all with the power of advanced analytics. In the leadup to the 2024 INFORMS Analytics Conference in sunny Orlando this…

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Leveraging supply chain and block chain technology to reduce ocean-bound plastic waste

Plastic pollution is a complex and growing global issue, with millions of tons of plastic waste reaching our oceans each year, killing thousands of seabirds, turtles, seals and other marine mammals. However new research has identified an approach to removing, recycling and reutilizing plastic that not only has a positive impact on the environment, but can also benefit communities in need in developing countries. Joining me to discuss how supply chain and block chain technology are being leveraged in innovative new ways to address the issue of plastic pollution is Opher Baron with the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of…

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Got a case of “The Mondays”? Your organization might too.

Many of us might admit that it can take us a bit of time to get into the swing of things on a Monday morning. This is often referred to as a case of “The Mondays” or the “Monday Blues.” But does the same hold true for businesses as a whole, with significant performance variations occurring based on what day of the week it is? To take a deeper dive into this topic, I am joined by Oliver Yao, professor and association dean of graduate programs of the College of Business at Lehigh University to discuss his research recently published…

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