Faculty and Students Shine as Analytical Consultants
Information is the prime currency of modern enterprise. Private and public entities alike take in terabytes of data on products and services, human resources, customer relations, communication, and scores of other topics. The challenge, of course, is converting the deluge of facts and figures into usable business strategies.
At Bentley, that expertise resides in the new Center for Quantitative Analysis (CQA). The center’s director, Professor of Mathematical Sciences Sam Woolford (pictured above), characterizes the venture as part science, part art. The science is using statistical methodologies to pinpoint patterns in reams of data; the art is applying the techniques to business decision-making.
“It’s fun to take real problems and see how you can solve them with analytic frameworks,” says Woolford. “Organizations today must consider a huge number of variables to make good decisions.”
Mutual Benefit
The idea for CQA was hatched in 2007, when Woolford gathered a group of Bentley faculty and graduate students to offer expert quantitative skills for off-campus clients. His own 20-year stint in business consulting had provided wide-ranging insight into corporate analytical needs. As a teacher, Woolford was eager for Bentley students to see the practical application of their theoretical knowledge.
“We have a high level of statistical and quantitative abilities,” he says of students enrolled in the university’s PhD and master’s degree programs. “The center affords an opportunity for students to work with businesses, applying what they learn in the classroom to the real world. On the other side of the equation, most organizations can’t support the high-level analytical resources needed to solve the technical problems they face. So it works well to bring the two together.”
Hitting the Gas
One early CQA client was a utility company. The utility wanted to fine-tune its approach for handling emergency calls; for example, determining how many people were needed, which repair trucks to send from where, and how quickly to respond. CQA staff analyzed these and many other factors – the time of day for calls, worker and equipment resources and costs, regulation compliance – to create an optimal dispatch strategy.
Another CQA professor, Charles Hadlock of the Mathematical Sciences Department, worked on the project with Bentley graduate students. The team built a computer-generated graphical simulation model, based on a map of street routes from real-time truck locations to emergency locations. The resulting map showed numerous lines emerging and disappearing, which company representatives at all levels – from first responders to financial VPs – studied with CQA to detect patterns and outcomes.
“The client loved it,” says Hadlock. “There were all kinds of variables that we could adjust. Watching them on a computer screen, we began to see patterns. Then we could analyze those patterns to suggest optimal operations. It was a nice combination of faculty expertise, student learning, real client work, and the Bentley reputation.”
For all his interest in high-level statistical theory, Woolford is especially happy about the practical business experience that CQA offers to Bentley students. As he puts it: “You can come up with the best [theoretical] solution, but it’s not a solution if the client can’t understand it.”