Robert Bordley smiles and poses for a portrait

Robert Bordley

Professor of Practice

Location

Phone

Primary Website

Biography

Personal Pronouns

he/him

Additional Title(s)

  • Director of Systems Engineering and Design Program

Professor Bordley is a Fellow of INFORMS, the American Statistical Association and the Society of Decision Professionals. Bob joined the university part-time in 2002 and full-time in 2016. Bob previously worked at Booz-Allen-Hamilton on Army procurement decisions, at NSF as director of its Decision, Risk and Management Sciences Program and in multiple roles at General Motors. At General Motors, Bob led innovations in revenue management, cost, profit and dealer satisfaction driver analysis, product segmentation, the marketing/engineering interface, the Research and Development Portfolio and incorporating systems engineering practices into vehicle design. Bob is an officer of the International Council of Systems Engineer and has been an officer in the Risk Section (American Statistical Association), the Production and Operations Management Society, INFORMS (and its Decision Analysis Society.)

Education

  • Phd, M.S., University of California, Berkeley, 1979, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
  • MBA, University of California, Berkeley, 1979
  • BS and BA, Michigan State University, 1975, Physics and Policy Sciences

Research Interests

Dr. Bordley leads groundbreaking research on systems engineering with a special emphasis on incorporating decision analysis. He is renown for his work on target-oriented utility, experiment-dependent probabilities, combination of forecasts, volatilite targets in project management, measuring interproduct similarity in product portfolios, quantum probabilities, discrete choice models with large correlated choice sets, graphical decision analysis and discounted longevity risk measures.


Research areas:
, , , ,

Professional Society Memberships

  • Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
  • Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
  • International Council of Systems Engineering;American Statistical Association
  • Council of Engineered Systems Universities

Awards

  • Tom Sawyer Teaching Award, University of Michigan, 2023
  • Ramsey Medal for Distinguished Contributions in Decision Analysis, INFORMS Decision Analysis Society, 2021
  • Best Publication Award, Decision Analysis Society, 2006
  • Distinguished Educator Award, Industrial Engineeering and Operations Management Society, 2021
  • Gold Award, Engineering Society of Detroit, 2023
  • ISD Departmental Faculty Award, 2020
  • Liketime Achievement Award, Michigan INCOSE, 2020
  • Chairman’s Award, General Motors, 2004
  • President’s Council Award, General Motors, 1998
  • Award of Excellence, General Motors Research, 1994

Sample Publications

  • R. Bordley, T. Logan, J. Keisler. “Project Management with Uncertain Deadlines.” 2018. European Journal of Operations Research. 274(1), 291-302, 2018.
  • G. Urban, G. Liberali, E. McDonald, R. Bordley and J. Hauser “Morphing Banner Advertising.” Marketing Science, 33(1), 27-46, 2013.
  • R. Bordley and S. Pollock. “Assigning Resources and Targets to an Organization’s Activities.” European Journal of Operational Research, 220(3), 752-761, 2012,
  • R. Bordley and S. Pollock. “A Decision Analytic Approach to Reliability-Based Design Optimization.” Operations Research. 57,5, 1262-1270, 2009.
  • R. Bordley and V. Bier. “Updating Beliefs about Variables given new information on how those Variables Relate.” European Journal of Operational Research. 193(1), 184-194, 2009.
  • R. Bordley and C. Kirkwood. “Multiattribute Preference Analysis with Performance Targets.” Operations Research. 52(6), 823-835, 2004.
  • R. Bordley. “Quantum Mechanical and Human Violations of Compound Probability Principles: Toward a Generalized Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.” Operations Research. 46(6),923-926,1998
  • R. Bordley and G. Hazen. “Nonlinear Utility Models Implied by Small World Intercorrelations.” Management Science. 38(7), 1010-1017, 1992.
  • R. Bordley and G. Hazen. “SSB & Weighted Linear Utility as Expected Utility with Suspicion.” Management Science. 37(4), 396-408, 1991.
  • R. Bordley. “Discounted Longevity as a Risk-Reduction Measure.” Operations Research. 38(5), 815-819, 1990.