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2012 INFORMS Impact Prize honors originators of algebraic modeling languages

October 22nd, 2012

The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) announced today that it has awarded the 2012 Impact Prize to Johannes Bisschop, Kevin Cunningham, Robert Fourer, David Gay, Brian Kernighan, Bjarni Kristjansson, Alexander Meeraus, and Linus Schrage.

Awarded every two years, the INFORMS® Impact Prize is a lifetime achievement award in the field of Operations Research. The prize highlights a tool, methodology or concept that has had wide-ranging impact on practice and society, with a very broad scope.

The awardees were trailblazers in developing the five most important algebraic modeling languages: AIMMS, AMPL, GAMS, LINDO/LINGO and MPL. These systems effectively translate a mathematical model into a computer language, and let the user employ different optimization solvers. They have been incorporated in general-purpose systems of large technical software companies, spreadsheet programs, mathematical modeling systems, and object-oriented programming languages.

"Today, the availability of powerful, efficient and intuitive general-purpose modeling languages plays a central role in encouraging optimization applications throughout the field of operations research and beyond, from short-term scheduling through multi-year planning, in all aspects of production, logistics, business strategy, and many areas of engineering," the INFORMS® Impact Prize Committee announced in recognizing the awardees' achievement.

The committee chair was Geert-Jan van Houtum, Professor of Maintenance, Reliability, and Quality at Eindhoven University of Technology in Eindhoven, Netherlands. "Algebraic modeling languages were game changers because they allowed optimizers to separate model formulation from implementation details," said Steve Sashihara, CEO of Princeton Consultants, the corporate sponsor of the Impact Prize. Sashihara, who authored "The Optimization Edge" (McGraw-Hill: 2011), also noted: "The prize winners' achievements have helped move optimization from the classroom to the boardroom."

The award was presented at the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona on October 14.

Provided by Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences

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