Goodeve Medal Previous Awards

• 2022 - Giusppe Bruno, Manuel Cavola, Antonio Diglio, Gilbert Laporte and Carmela Piccolo
• 2021 - Greg H. Gehret, Jeffery D. Weir, Alan W. Johnson, David R. Jacques
• 2020 - Esra Adiyeke, Semra Agrali and Ethem Canakoglu
• 2019 - Assimizele Brice, Robin Bye, Johannes Royset, Johan Oppen
• 2018 - Agha Iqbal Ali and Guven Ince
• 2017 - Aimée Backiel and Bart Baesens
• 2015 - Sally Brailsford, Dileep De Silva
• 2014 - Sonya Crowe, Peter Bennett, Maren Daraktchiev, Martin Utley
• 2013 - J Bengtsson, D Bredström, P Flisberg, M Rönnqvist
• 2012 - P Kemmer, A Strauss, T Winter
• 2011 - R Johnston, E Shale, S Kapoor, A Sheth, R True
• 2010 - L C Thomas
• 2009 - S Kumar, D A Nottestad, E E Murphy
• 2008 - D Ronen, C A Goodhart
• 2007 - A Medina-Borja , K S Pasupathy, K Triantis
• 2006 - SC Brailsford, P Harper, D Evenden, Dr V Harindra

• 2005 - K Taylor, B Dangerfield
• 2004 - SC Brailsford, V Lattimer, P Tarnaras, J Turnbull
• 2003 - R Hartley, G Lanot
• 2002 - J E Beasley, H Howells, J Sonander 
• 2001 - C Eden, S Howick 
• 2000 - K Korporaal, A Ridder, P Kloprogge, R Dekker
• 1999- J Banasik, J N Crook, L C Thomas 
• 1998 - F Duckworth, A J Lewis 
• 1997 - D-W Tcha, T-J Choi, Y-S Myung 
• 1996 - C M Yates, T Rehman 
• 1995 - M Carey, D Lockwood 
• 1994 - G M Campbell, C F Davis 
• 1993 - D W Bunn, E R Larsen, K Vlahos, 
• 1992 - A Bouzaher, S Offutt 
• 1991 - D Schrady, D Wadsworth 
• 1990 - R Bandyopadhay, S Datta

Citation for Goodeve Medal 2021

Giusppe Bruno, Manuel Cavola, Antonio Diglio, Gilbert Laporte and Carmela Piccolo

Reorganizing postal collection operations in urban areas as a result of declining mail volumes – A case study in Bologna. 

The Journal of the Operational Research Society 72 (7), 1591-1606

www.doi.org/10.1080/01605682.2020.1736446

Many OR projects deal with the location of services when expansion is planned. But of course, there are increasing numbers of contraction of services due to technological change. In particular, the impact of technological developments on consumer habits and behaviour is endangering the classical model of postal services. The resulting fall in postal volumes generated by the substitution of traditional letter posts by electronic forms of communication has rendered the collection of postal items highly inefficient.

This project deals with a real problem concerning the reorganization of the collection system of the Italian postal service provider, based on the reduction of the number of postboxes currently located in an urban area. When considering the crucial role of post-boxes as main access points of some users to the postal network, equity is also taken into account.

The authors have produced a very clearly written paper and tested its practical value. The method can be applied to a wide range of other cases of declining but essential services.

From left to right: Giuseppe Bruno, Manuel Cavola, Antonio Diglio, Gilbert Laporte, Carmela Piccolo

Citation for Goodeve Medal 2020

Esra Adiyeke, Semra Agrali and Ethem Canakoglu

Risk Averse Investment Strategies for a Private Electricity Generating Company in a Carbon Constrained Environment 

Journal of the Operational Research Society, 70 (12), 2056-2068

www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/01605682.2018.1535265

This year’s Goodeve medal is awarded to Esra Adiyeke, Semra Agrali and Ethem Canakoglu, who are based in Turkey. 

We chose this paper because it is well and clearly written, and it deals with a global and fundamentally important topic, the carbon-and-climate issue. The study looks at a private electricity generating company that plans to enter a partially regulated market that operates under an active cap and trade system. There are different types of thermal and renewable power plants that the company considers to invest in over a predetermined planning horizon. The paper develops a time-consistent multi-stage stochastic optimization model for this investment problem, where the objective is to minimize the conditional value at risk (CV@R) of the net present value of the profit obtained through the planning horizon. The results of a simple case-study show that the developed model is appropriate for determining risk averse investment strategies for a company that operates under carbon restricted market conditions.

Citation for Goodeve Medal 2018

Agha Iqbal Ali, Isenberg School of Management, MA USA, and Guven Ince, Nature Source Genetics, NY USA

Distress among disaster-affected populations: delay in relief provision      

Journal of the Operational Research Society, 68 (5): 533-543

With major disasters seemingly even more common these days, this is a very important piece of work. It looks at the issue from the point of view of those impacted (compared to a number of studies concerned with making relief more efficient overall).

In this paper, the authors characterize two levels of distress, termed criticality and destitution, with respect to the delay provision of relief items. Delay in provision of a relief item will lead to destitution for a tolerable number of days, beyond which it will lead to criticality. They develop a mixed-integer goal program that quantifies these two metrics with respect to the number of days without provision of each of a set of relief items. The model determines the allocation of resources and the distribution of available relief items in a manner that minimizes criticality and destitution in affected population segments.

The use of the model is illustrated covering for the aftermath of a fictional catastrophic earthquake in a major city. The paper pinpoints the distinguishing characteristic of humanitarian logistics: that the requirements for resources are greatest at the onset of distribution. Strategic planning of disaster relief, beyond the consideration of infrastructure and storage of relief items, must include the establishment of protocols for immediate deployment of transport and manpower capacity.

Agha Iqbal Ali and Guven Ince with OR Society President John Hopes.

Citation for Goodeve Medal 2015

Sally Brailsford, University of Southampton; Dileep De Silva, Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka

How many dentists does Sri Lanka need?

Journal of the Operational Research Society, (2015) 66 (9), 1566–1577

https://doi.org/10.1057/jors.2014.136

Against the background of an over-supply of trained dentists in Sri Lanka, the authors developed two System Dynamics models, one to represent the supply of dentists, through training and in practice until retirement and the other to represent the demand for dentists under various scenarios of population change and economic activity over the coming 15 years. The impact of two key decision variables were examined: first, the annual recruitment rate of admitting new students to university, and second, the creation of new state-funded clinical posts. The fact that one of the authors is a qualified dentist engendered trust and a high response rate from participating dentists, resulting in realistic estimates of transition rates from year to year being obtained. Ministry of health officials participated in runs of the models to examine policy options and have based policy on the results. The outcome is that Sri Lankan dentists now have improved career prospects and more than one million people who previously had no access to care now visit a state dentist at least once a year.

This paper describes an outstanding case study with a powerful impact and stresses the importance of involving all stakeholders so as to ensure the collection of accurate data and to ease implementation.

Dileep De Silva and Sally Brailsford with Ruth Kaufman

Citation for Goodeve Medal 2013

Jens Bengtsson, David Bredström, Patrik Flisberg and Mikael Rönnqvist

Robust planning of blending activities at refineries

Journal of the Operational Research Society, (2013) 64 (6), 848–863

https://doi.org/10.1057/jors.2012.86

Refinery operation planning is a complex task since refinery processes and inventories are tightly interconnected and ships arriving with crude oil for processing have uncertain arrival times. Whilst optimising oil refinery operations has been a standard application of OR techniques for decades, this is the first successful attempt to combine the uncertainty of tanker arrivals into a robust optimisation approach. The authors use a simulation case study to demonstrate that this methodological innovation out-performs conventional deterministic approaches and will be of great interest to both researchers and practitioners.

Citation for Goodeve Medal 2011

R Johnston, E Shale, S Kapoor, A Sheth and R True

Breadth of range and depth of stock: forecasting and inventory management at Euro Car Parts Ltd.

Journal of the Operational Research Society, (2011) 62 (3), 433-441

https://doi.org/10.1057/jors.2010.189

This case study paper describes how the management of the stock held by a large UK wholesale car parts company, at regional hubs and local stock holding branches, was improved. A critical and innovative feature in the approach was the linking of both the range of stock and the amount of stock to hold at hubs and branches so as to optimise the investment in inventory. Improved parts demand forecasts were also developed to enable better management of inventory. The new approach was implemented and has led to significant increases in stock turn and sales value with only a marginal increase in inventory held.

The judges described the paper as an excellent case study which had a real and sustained impact on the client company. The work demonstrated that theoretical developments can lead to significant benefits in the real world so long as researchers and managers collaborate closely so as to address the practicalities.

Citation for Goodeve Medal 2009

S Kumar, D A Nottestad and E E Murphy

Effects of product postponement on the distribution network: a case study

Journal of the Operational Research Society, (2009) 60 (4), 471–480

https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602572

In this case study paper a simulation model is described which enabled a large multi-national manufacturing company (3M) to evaluate the introduction of a product postponement policy that had become feasible. Product postponement involves the timing of products in the various parts of the distribution chain and also whether it is cost-effective to delay some manufacturing processes, e.g. assembly, until a customer order is received. The use of the WITNESS-based discrete-event model enabled distribution planners to evaluate trade-offs between stock holding costs and delivery performance to customers. The judges were impressed with the way that customer ordering behaviour had been modelled in a realistic way and by the development of a decision support tool that enabled the planners to tune the system for best performance and also to investigate what-if scenarios. The model is scalable to include more customers, branches, stock holding units and products and the company now intends to apply the tools to a wider range of products.

S Kumar, D A Nottestad and E E Murphy

Citation for Goodeve Medal 2007

Medina-Borja A, Pasupathy K S and Triantis K

Large-scale data envelopment analysis (DEA) implementation: a strategic performance management approach

Journal of the Operational Research Society, (2007) 58 (8), 1084-1098

https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602200

This paper describes the development and implementation of a data envelopment analysis (DEA)-based performance management system for a major US charity. The system evaluates more than 1000 field unit operations devoted to disaster relief, emergency communications, and life-saving skills training. The work entailed developing an advanced conceptual model for measuring performance in the nonprofit sector. The novel DEA formulation had to account for differences in the operational environment of the field units, and included service quality and effectiveness measures alongside traditional efficiency measures. Finally, the project involved creating a data collection system and report generation tools necessary for the deployment of evaluation results to the field in a user-friendly format for managers. The new system has been running for 3 years and has enabled better benchmarking throughout the organisation, the identification of relative inefficiencies and better allocation of resources so as to achieve strategic goals.

There are many theoretical papers on the use of DEA but this is one of very few large scale implementions that have been incorporated into a real life decision-making process. This should provide a stimulus for more work in this field. While the suitability of DEA for real-life performance measurement is demonstrated, the challenges of a DEA implementation are also discussed. The approach has applications to other charitable organisations.

Alexandra Medina-Borja with Sue Merchant (President of The OR Society)

Citation for Goodeve Medal 2005

K Taylor and B Dangerfield

Modelling the feedback effects of reconfiguring health services

Journal of the Operational Research Society, (2005) 56 (6), 659-675

https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601862

The paper looks at the impact of decisions to offer health care services closer to the patient and the unintended consequences that might result. System dynamics models of two different health care providers were built. These were then used to evaluate alternative policy decisions that were being considered. A key result from the study was the recognition that improving health care services can actually stimulate demand for those services. The discussion at the end of the paper includes the following statements "Increasing capacity is not the most effective way of improving access" and "Patient pressure represents challenges to the delivery of health care which cannot be ignored in a realistic model". Overall the paper argues for stricter clinical guidelines in delivering healthcare and ensuring that the criteria for measuring the performance of clinical units are appropriate.

Citation for Goodeve Medal 2003

Hartley and G. Lanot

On the design of lottery games

Journal of the Operational Research Society, (2003) 54, pp. 89-100.

State lotteries are widely used to generate tax income and to raise funds for causes such as sport, the arts and education. The total revenue is affected by the tax rate and the level of participation, which in turn is affected by the design of the lottery and, in particular, the probability of winning a jackpot prize. Hartley and Lanot, the authors of this paper, have developed a model for these effects and have used it to judge whether the current design and tax rate for the UK National Lottery are optimal, in terms of generating income for good causes. They show that revenue could be increased by increasing the probability of winning the jackpot and/or reducing the rate of taxation.

The model is a dynamic model of individual behaviour and takes into account features such as the consumer's attitude to risk and his/her "fun function" – the direct consumption value of money spent on the lottery as compared with other potential purchases. The fun function can also depend on whether it is a rollover draw and whether that individual has ever won anything on the lottery before. The probability of participation is increased not only by the size of the jackpot, but also by the ’fun‘ a person has in purchasing a ticket.

The authors use some elegant mathematics to construct a stochastic dynamic optimisation model of the consumer's decision of how many tickets to buy, and then to solve it by a first-order approximation as a static, deterministic, non-linear programming model.  Investigation of the properties of the (unique) optimal solution shows that the solution is plausible for a realistic set of assumptions about the various model parameters and functions. The model is then applied to the UK National Lottery, assuming the current operating costs and jackpot proportion. A set of simulation experiments showed that increasing the probability of winning the jackpot (currently 1 in 14 million) and decreasing the tax rate both lead to an increase in expected tax revenue. Increasing the jackpot probability reduces the number of rollovers, but this is offset by the increased participation due to the higher chance of winning. Decreasing the tax rate also increases participation sufficiently to offset the reduction in tax revenue. The authors have carried out a detailed sensitivity analysis using different functional forms and parameter values and the recommendations remain unchanged.

The paper is clearly written despite its mathematical complexity and demonstrates how operational research can make an impact in a practical problem of national importance.  The authors are to be congratulated on their work and for winning the Goodeve Medal.