Start-Up Firms Can Maximize Profit with Mathematical Model

The use of optimization techniques in high-tech start-up companies is rarely used, particularly in the early high growth years. Rather than employ a spreadsheet planning method for a three-year business plan, could optimization expand the sales resources of an early-stage company to meet the company’s growth requirements?

John Ryan, EMIS doctoral student and entrepreneur who built two startup companies into NASDAQ-traded firms—one grew from $3 million to $148 million in five years—determined that an optimized model met 100% of all constraints, where the Excel model missed the gross margin requirement in four quarters and failed achieving the 10% quarterly revenue growth in two quarters. Further, Ryan found that the optimized model could be easily modified to reflect new constraints and extended to a four-year planning horizon.

Fannie Mae Sold on New Graduate’s Operations Research

To help evaluate the cost of using vendors vs. internal human resources, minimize credit losses and inventory timelines, and evaluate sales channels, Fannie Mae turned to its MIS business analyst supporting the Real Estate Owned (foreclosed properties) operations.

Desiree Brown, MSOR 2010, Senior Business Analyst/Analytics, drew upon her graduate experience in inventory allocation, process optimization, and consolidated reporting metrics to help her employer operate more efficiently and reduce the number of manual activities that a business user performs each day.

Systems Engineering Management Takes Off at Bell Helicopter

Bell Helicopter-Textron needed to track contracts through the life cycle and identify gaps using a systems approach that would produce metrics to measure cost, schedule, and performance as well as collect “percent completes” on task orders.

Lori Warren, Bell Helicopter-Textron, reports that instead of a rush-to-launch approach she may have employed without her specialized degree, she can now offer her employer high-level planning and communication as well as insight into managing projects with the Earned Value Management systems approach.

Learn more here: lyle.smu.edu/emis/