‘Too big to fail’: How USAID’s $9.5B supply chain vision unraveled
Ten years ago, USAID unveiled the largest contract in its history, aimed at transforming health supply chains in lower-income countries. It has not gone according to plan.
Announcing the results of the 2026 INFORMS Board of Directors election and the new board for 2027.
INFORMS has named 12 distinguished leaders as the 2026 class of INFORMS Fellows, one of the highest honors in the profession.
Most medical devices do not hit the market through rigorous safety testing but by being deemed similar enough to something already approved—the “predicate” device through a mechanism known as the FDA’s 510(k) pathway. But similar is not a synonym for safe. While the assumption may be that substantial equivalence is a reasonable stand-in for a safety review, a share of devices cleared with this method still get recalled, and the FDA spends valuable time reviewing devices the same way, regardless of how risky it is on paper.
An audio journey of how data and analytics save lives, save money and solve problems.

Jeff Cohen
Chief Strategy Officer
INFORMS
Catonsville, MD
[email protected]
443-757-3565
Explore our resources for multiple topics including:
Ten years ago, USAID unveiled the largest contract in its history, aimed at transforming health supply chains in lower-income countries. It has not gone according to plan.
Over the course of this year, several analysts have reported that online retailers are coming down off of their peak sales seen during the pandemic. So, what does this mean to the supply chain, and shopping habits going into the busy 2023 holiday shopping season?
North Carolina State University Professor of Supply Chain Management Robert Hanfield and Architecture & Tech Oklahoma State University Assoc Dean for Academic Affairs - College of Engineering Sunderesh Heragu discuss Black Friday shopping and the supply chain troubles.
With the arrival of Thanksgiving comes the holiday that shoppers look forward to every year: Black Friday.
One of the best ways to get a picture of a nation is through its numbers and, perhaps more importantly, its averages.

OR/MS Today is the INFORMS member magazine that shares the latest research and best practices in operations research, analytics and the management sciences.
Access OR/MS Today Magazine
Analytics magazine showcases articles and research reports based on big data, AI, machine learning, data analytics and other new-age technologies.
Access Analytics Magazine