MARVIN D. TROUTT
Marvin D. Troutt is a Distinguished Scholar Award (2005) Professor in the Department of
Management & Information Systems and the Graduate School of Management in the College of
Business at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio. in addition to his research and teaching, he
guides the research of colleagues and doctoral students, having directed over 20 dissertations.
He received the PhD in Mathematical Statistics from The University of Illinois at Chicago in
1975, the M.S. in Applied Mathematics in 1970 and the B.S. in Mathematics and Statistics in
1966 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He worked as an actuary at Bankers
Life & Casualty Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1966-1970, and earned the Associate of the Society
of Actuaries (A.S.A.) designation from the Society of Actuaries in 1978 through competitive
examinations. He worked in the Office of Institutional Research and Studies at Southern Illinois
University, Carbondale, Illinois, 1978-79.
Prof. Troutt served as an Associate Editor of Decision Sciences Journal, 1987-2003. He is an
Associate Editor of the Journal of Organizational and End User Computing and serves on the
Editorial Advisory Board of Computers & Operations Research, and The International Journal of
Mathematics in Operational Research. He was designated a Fellow of DSI in 2001. He has
served as the Director of the Center for Information Systems at Kent State University, 1998-200,
and the Henry J. Rehn Research Professor in Management at Southern Illinois University at
Carbondale, 1990-1998. He served as Visiting Scholar in the Department of Applied
Mathematics at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University during 1994-95. In 1986 he attended the
A.A.C.S.B. Advanced Faculty Development Institute in M.I.S.
He has coauthored two books and published over 200 refereed articles, book chapters, and
Proceedings. His work has appeared in such journals as: Advances & Applications in Statistics,
Annals of Operations Research, Business Process Management Journal, Computers &
Industrial Engineering, Computers & Operations Research, Decision Sciences, Decision
Support Systems, Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences, European Journal of Operational
Research, INTERFACES, International Journal of Business and Economics, International
Journal of Operations and Production Management, International Journal of Operational
Research, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, International
Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Mathematics in Operational Research,
International Journal of Strategic Decision Sciences, International Journal of Technology
Intelligence and Planning, Journal of Applied Meteorology, Journal of Benchmarking for Quality,
Management and Technology, Journal of Business and Economics Research
Journal of Data Analysis, Journal of Global Commerce Research, Journal for Higher Education
Management, Journal of Industrial and Management Optimization, Journal of Information
Technology Theory & Application, Journal of Knowledge Management, Journal of Multi-Criteria
Decision Analysis, Journal of the Operational Research Society, Journal of Optimization Theory
and Applications, Journal of Organizational and End User Computing, Journal of Systems and
Software, Logistics Information Management, Management Science, Mathematical and
Computer Modeling, Mathematical Programming, Naval Research Logistics, OMEGA, Online
Information Review: The International Journal of Digital Information Research and Use,
Operations Research, Operations Research Letters, Organizational Research Methods, OR
Spektrum, Research in Higher Education, SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications,
SIAM Review, Statistics, The Energy Journal, The Journal of Consumer Marketing, The Journal
of Risk and Insurance, The Journal of Systems and Software, and Theory and Decision.
Prof. Troutt has coauthored two books:
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Troutt, M.D., Pang, W. K. and Hou, S. H., 2004. Vertical Density Representation and its
Applications, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., Singapore.
Higuchi, T. and Troutt, M. D., 2008. Life Cycle Management in Supply Chains: Identifying
Innovations through the Case of the VCR. April. IGI Global Publishing Company, Hershey, PA.
His major interests have been in the application of mathematical programming and optimization
techniques to the areas of multicriteria optimization, input-output efficiency analysis and
parameter estimation. His 1994 article in Operations Research developed a criterion function
gradient scaling method and an information elicitation technique for interactive multiple criteria
optimization problems. His recent work in this area seeks to apply such methods to interactive
spreadsheet model solution as a generalization of single criterion goal-seeking.
His work in efficiency analysis includes applications, extensions and alternative models for data
envelopment analysis (DEA). His early application work in this area developed a method to use
DEA for a cased-based approach for deciding new credit risk decisions. Later an approach was
proposed for using DEA to establish production targets in multi-stage production processes.
This is a data-based approach that uses observed performances of various stages of a
production process to infer maximal overall capabilities for the whole process and to suggest
cycle targets taking into account initial buffers. More recently, DEA and another new efficiency
modeling technique MPI, described below, have been applied to estimating imitative arbitrage
opportunities in firms within an industry. His early theory work in efficiency analysis was aimed
at proposing efficiency ratio models with fixed input and output weights. Such “common” weights
are not permitted to vary over the productive units being compared and thus force a common
yardstick efficiency ranking of units. More recently this theory worked has merged into a more
general estimation technique discussed next.
His work in estimation has concentrated on developing statistical theory for data arising from
purposeful or managed behavior, an area little considered in classical statistics but important for
business and elsewhere. Major interest has been in developing a reverse use of modeling to
estimate missing data. This work led to his 1995 article in Management Science. In this article
he proposed a new estimation principle called maximum decisional efficiency (MDE) estimation
principle. Recent work in this area has applied MDE concepts to the estimation of costs and
other missing data estimation. As part of this work he developed a new density analysis
technique called vertical density representation (VDR), the basics of which were published in
the Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences in 1999 and discussed further below.
Closely related to the above estimation work is the topic of Vertical Density Representation
(VDR) This new density analysis technique has been described in the Encyclopedia of
Statistical Sciences in 1999. VDR is a new approach to representing multivariate probability
density functions, which was originated by Prof. Troutt 1993. The VDR technique has recently
been used to split ordinary Pearson correlation into two separate components. This has
promise in improving the aggregation of forecasts and expert opinions. In addition, VDR has
recently been applied to designing Chaos functions for generating uniform random numbers.
VDR has a number of applications to computer simulation and several of these are discussed in
Prof. Troutt’s book with W.K. Pang and S. H. Hou, both at the Hong Kong Polytechnic
University.
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The above research was in part motivated by a pet problem of career-long interest to Prof.
Troutt. This problem is a version of inverse optimization in the linear programming context.
Namely, given a series of input and output vectors, as in input-output efficiency analysis, is it
possible to infer or fit a linear programming model to the data in the following way. Namely, the
input vectors are to be interpretable as the available resources or right hand side constraint
levels, and the outputs are optimal or approximately optimal solutions to the unknown linear
programming model. Together with colleagues a general solution was finally obtained and
published in the article: Troutt, M. D., Brandyberry, A. A., Sohn, C. and Tadisina, S. K.
2008. “Linear programming system identification: The general nonnegative parameters
case”. European Journal of Operational Research 185(1), 63-75.
Prof. Troutt’s other research areas of interest include data mining, knowledge management,
evolutionary and genetic optimization algorithms, and quality assurance theory and applications,
aggregation of expert information, mode estimation, methods for bias reduction, decision
support techniques and systems, decision “bootstrapping”, manager versus model of the
manager, supply chain management issues such as fair revenue and cost sharing and strategic
design, strategic design issues in supply chains, and general research methods. He has
participated in research grants from Southern Illinois University a Carbondale, Kent State
University and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
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