Booz Allen Wins in Operations Research and Analytics

Minimizing vaccine production variability, detecting pharmaceutical safety issues, preventing entitlement fraud, and disrupting threat networks…  no easy feat for one human, or even a team. By applying operations research (O.R.), we’re bolstering national security, serving our country’s citizens, and transforming our organization from the inside out.

Operations research (O.R.) is a discipline that applies analytics, math, and data science to help solve problems by making more informed decisions more efficiently. Once a niche capability in the early 2000s to now an integral component of our internal operations and strategic offerings, O.R. is thriving at Booz Allen.

Winning the 2019 INFORMS Prize for pioneering and enduring integration of O.R. and analytics programs, our O.R. teams are looking ahead to where O.R. and analytics can improve lives by enhancing client and employee experiences.

Let’s explore Booz Allen’s path forward in O.R.

Transforming from the start

Booz Allen began providing O.R. services back in the 1980s by applying modeling and simulation techniques to inform defense strategy and military acquisition programs. By 2000, approximately 100 O.R. analysts were assessing the impact of modern weapon systems for the U.S. Department of Defense using mathematical programming methods and other O.R. techniques. By 2008, our practice expanded to over 500 practitioners incorporating optimization, econometrics, and data mining offerings to new challenges in economic policy, pharmaceutical safety, oil and gas production, and critical infrastructure protection.

In 2013, we recognized the increasing need for O.R. talent and solutions, specifically in the areas of data science and machine learning, as essential to the future of our client missions. To drive adoption of transformative capabilities for our clients, as well as internal research and development efforts, we developed standardized methodologies, implementation guides, technologies, tools, and training programs to facilitate O.R. adoption firmwide. In 2015, we released “The Field Guide to Data Science” to explain why data science matters to organizations and offer field-tested approaches, case studies, expert insights, and tips for beginners and senior leaders.

Today, over 4,000 O.R. practitioners at Booz Allen are engaging collaboratively to meet client missions and improve our own business. To enhance cross-disciplinary exchanges and accelerate internal research and development projects, our teams join leaders in defense, experts in high-performance computing and national security, and solution architects backed by government and commercial experience.

Internally, we incorporate O.R. into our culture and operations to achieve new efficiencies. For example, we implemented Workday (human capital management technology) to centralize personnel data, pursue workforce optimization, and engage employees.

Making an impact in the community

While we’re using O.R. to empower our clients, our employees are also putting their skills to use on a local level to make an impact on society. Booz Allen developed a comprehensive Data Science for Social Good strategy to provide benefits to our people, our firm, and our communities around the world. Its mission, to harness data science to promote positive changes in the broader society, enables our employees to both apply O.R. methods and learn new analytic skills while giving back to local communities.

Since 2015, Booz Allen has hosted the annual Data Science Bowl in partnership with Kaggle. At the largest data science for social good competition in the world, sponsors present a new challenge and datasets to all participants. These topics can range from assessing ocean health via image detection to transforming how we diagnose heart disease. (Take a look at last year’s results here—nearly 18,000 competitors convened to help medical researchers innovate more quickly.)

“O.R. is critical for our clients, especially in the areas of defense and intelligence,” explains Kathleen Featheringham, chief technologist at Booz Allen. “Through our efforts in O.R. and analytics, we are helping our clients advance the state of their mission tradecraft and techniques so they can have better trust and confidence in their decisions backed by actionable insights. The significance of this cannot be stated enough as those decisions directly affect the safety of our nation.”

Want to learn more about O.R. and analytics at Booz Allen?

• Download the latest version of our Field Guide to Data Science
• Check out boozallen.com/analytics
• Join us in support of this year’s Data Science Bowl – get details at DataScienceBowl.com
• Find out what drives our data scientists, Sherika Sylvester, Sarah Thompson, and Stephanie Beben
• Explore how we’re using data science for social good
• Listen to the latest tech talks from pioneers featured in our podcast series
• Take a look at our O.R. job openings
• Get in touch with Steve Escaravage, senior vice president of analytics at Booz Allen