A Win-Win

When the Syngenta soybean breeding team won the 2015 INFORMS Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Operations Research and the Management Sciences, it beat out major competitors known for their operational excellence, including IBM and the U.S. Army. Syngenta was the first-ever agricultural company to receive the award, which acknowledges significant contributions of analytics and operations research in the for-profit and nonprofit sectors.

“The Edelman Award is rigorous and merit-based,” says Joseph Byrum, Ph.D., head of soybean research and development at Syngenta. “To receive the award means Syngenta is keeping up with organizations outside our industry and is clearly leading the charge within it.”

The winning Syngenta soybean breeding team initiative, called the Y.E.S. Yield Engineering System^™, uses advanced mathematics and state-of-the-art technologies to develop higher-yielding soybean varieties.

The recognition is a win for growers and resellers as well, notes Doug Tigges, soybean genetics product manager at Syngenta. “An award like the Franz Edelman confirms that our scientific approach to soybean breeding will help us continue to build a strong portfolio of NK^® Soybeans with the herbicide tolerance and agronomic traits that growers have come to expect.”