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Tovey Bachman Wins Barchi Prize

Presents best paper at 72nd MORSS

McLean, Virginia, April 5, 2005—Dr. Tovey C. Bachman, a member of our Supply Chain Management group, was recently awarded the Barchi Prize for the best paper presented at the 72nd Military Operations Research Society Symposium. His paper, “Reducing Aircraft Down for Lack of Parts with Sporadic Demand,” describes an ordering policy he developed for repair parts with sporadic demand patterns. Using a supply chain simulation, Tovey showed that his policy not only significantly reduces wholesale wait-time and backorders, but also retail backorders, resulting in fewer aircraft down for lack of parts. He also showed that the policy results in lower inventory value and procurement workload within a few years of initiation.

The Military Operations Research Society, or MORS, seeks to enhance the quality and effectiveness of military operations research to better support decision making in the Department of Defense. Since 1983, MORS has awarded the Barchi prize to the best paper presented at its annual symposium. It is named for CDR Richard H. Barchi, a former director of MORS.

Since joining LMI in 1989, Tovey has been extensively involved in developing mathematical models for analyzing complex systems. They include a simulation model for analyzing the performance of large-scale inventory and financial systems, an economic model that uses empirical repurchase probabilities to make retention versus disposal decisions for spare parts, and a hybrid analytical-parametric model for estimating the mass and volume of spares for future space missions. 

Tovey earned a BA in mathematics from Reed College, and an MA and a Ph.D. in mathematics, both from the University of Michigan.