The Colliery Planning System—A Microcomputer-based Aid to Colliery (Production) Planning

The Colliery Planning System (C.P.S.) is a medium- to long-term planning aid written in APL and running on a Superbrain microcomputer. It was developed by and has been used extensively within the Operational Research Executive (O.R.E.) of the National Coal Board and has been in routine use by planning staff in one of the N.C.B.'s Areas for over two years. This paper discusses the Colliery Planning System and outlines the problems it has been necessary to overcome to achieve implementation.     

O.R. in the National Coal Board

The organisation and philosophy of the ‘Area Service’ of the National Coal Board's Operational Research Executive is described, with special reference to factors which assist the Executive's O.R. scientists to develop good working relationships with managers.     

Better Than Survival: The Need for Research to Strengthen Planning in Industry and the Public Service

Editor's NoteThis is an invited contribution in our occasional series O.R. Reflections, in which are presented essentially personal views of O.R., based on contributors' own experience. What follows is a slightly revised version of the author's inaugural lecture as Professor of Systems and Operational Research at the University of Warwick on 10th May 1982.The author draws on his experience in industry and in an international research institute (IIASA) o restate the importance of strategic planning if organisations are to do better than mere survival. He argues the need for problem-oriented, inter-disciplinary research to support such activity and suggests that such research, directed towards investment and strategic policy, has a potential value which is quite out of proportion to the money currently invested in it.     

Voluntary Operational Research

Operational Research has traditionally been carried out in organizations which are able and willing to pay for it; this tends to restrict it to the larger industrial, commercial or governmental bodies. In this paper we reflect on an O.R. project done on behalf of a group of charities, to whom, as with most voluntary organizations, the skills of operational researchers are not usually available.It seems likely that voluntary organizations will have an increasing role as leisure time increases, and in any case the widening scope and complex context of their activities means that they could benefit from the kind of help that operational researchers can give. At the same time, O.R. workers who care about a particular voluntary organization may want to offer their skills to it. However, the skills of operational researchers are not as obviously relevant to voluntary organizations as is the professional expertise of lawyers and accountants. Undertaking O.R. projects as a voluntary helper rather than as a paid consultant, and in voluntary organizations rather than the more usual clients for O.R., has significant implications for the approach and methods used.We discuss these issues in the light of our recent experiences of carrying out ‘voluntary Operational Research’.     

Of Kings and Men,Especially O.R. Men: A Methodological Tale

Operational Research is defined as the application of the methods of science to problems arising in the direction and management of systems of men, machines, materials and money in industry, business, government and defence. This article argues, by way of a story set in ancient Greece, that if Operational Research is to provide practical and helpful advice in these areas, then such a definition is grossly misleading by its failure to spell out the basic necessity of having to apply the methods of technology to these problems. In particular this paper deals with the primary need for Operational Researchers to draw upon the heuristic principles governing technological innovation and creativity. It is further argued that such heuristic activity has an important bearing on just what meaning can be attached to the phrase ‘the application of the methods of science’ referred to in the definition of O.R.     

A Survey of Operational Research Groups in Great Britain

This paper surveys the turnover of staff in Operational Research groups. It suggest that surveys based on the membership of the Operational Research Society may be misleading as the majority of O.R. scientists do not belong to the Society. The paper gives data on the age range, length of service and qualifications of O.R. scientists in Industry, in Government and in Consulting.     

Subjective Information Modelling

Operational Research is viewed as an aid to decision making and it is believed that at present an increasing part of the decision maker's task is being shut off from the operational researcher because of the latter's inability to make a useful contribution. Particular problems are those in which the decision maker has to use his subjective judgement, intuition and foresight to enable him to make choices between alternatives. There has been a great deal of work over the last ten years in the field of technological forecasting in which attempts are made to qualify, quantify and aggregate such subjective judgements, for example, Delphi and Cross Impact Analysis.The object of this paper is to present a framework within which these new procedures and the traditional O.R. approaches may be brought together. We feel that this may open the way for an improvement in decision making and an expanded role for O.R.     

The Changing Role of O.R.

The authors set out to consider the activities of their own O.R. group at British Airways in the light of Russ Ackoff's papers delivered at the 1978 ORS Conference, but the paper has developed into a discussion of Ackoff's ideas from the viewpoint of an in-house industrial O.R. group that has had considerable success in implementation and has thought a great deal about what it is trying to do. Particularly relevant is the emphasis placed by this O.R. group on highly interactive planning models and systems and on an evolutionary approach to development. Some attempt is made to put Ackoff's ideas into an historical perspective and his main points are discussed one by one. The authors are in sympathy with the direction Ackoff is pressing, but not with the gloom his paper has generated in some quarters.     

New Opportunities for O.R.

This paper is a summary of the introductory talk at the two day seminar ‘Management, Operational Research and the Micro’, held in London during November 1980. It discusses the value and place of computers in O.R and the effect of the micro on these factors.     

Operational Research and Formal Education

This paper, which was originally presented at the Second International Working Seminar of the University of Sussex in April 1978, gives an overview of Operational Research as applied to formal education in the United States. It first reviews past work in the field, much of which dates from the mid 1960's, when administrators first turned to O.R. for resolution of education's peculiar crisis situation. From this base, it develops a projection of an attainable state of the science and a proposal for its attainment.     

Play theatre a new way to teach O.R.

In this paper we present a teaching experiment which is particularly motivating for students following an Operational Research course. The experiment consists of the presentation of a theatre play by the students in which they integrate a real world problem, its modelisation, the use of associated software and sensitivity analysis. This experiment can easily be reproduced by any teacher in O.R.     

Operational Research in the U.K. in 1977: The Causes and Consequences of a Myth?

Instead of maintaining the original ideal of having a broad scientific basis for practical Operational Research, it is suggested that the O.R. community has uncritically accepted a myth which views O.R. as a "Hard" (Physical or even Mathematical) Science. It is argued that this has had profound consequences which explain the present difficulties O.R. workers have with problems involving major Social or Behavioural features. It is concluded that the "Hard" Science myth must be replaced, and a return made to the original conception of O.R., if we are to assist effectively in the complex social issues we face today.     

In Praise of Unicorns

The general thrust of this paper will be to put the recent ‘King is Dead’ controversy into its proper perspective, to review the consequences of Russell Ackoff's criticisms of the 1978 Conference, to look with a critical yet benevolent eye on university courses in the light of these criticisms and to suggest a menu of unsolved problems which might indicate exciting developments in our subject.The paper will start with a discussion of the three disasters which have hit Operational Research in the last twenty years. It is the contention of the speaker that the ‘King is Dead’ controversy was largely a controversy about nothing of significance and, by sapping the energies of those who could otherwise have been constructively employed, was itself one of these disasters (the other two can be left as exercises for the reader).The criticisms of Russell Ackoff were of a much more substantial nature. The author does not agree completely either with Ackoff's diagnosis or his suggestion of the way the patient should be treated. The paper will suggest ways in which the universities have reacted to these criticisms and the extent to which they are moving away from the mind-bending dullness and boredom which seems to run through so much Operational Research teaching. The place of universities in contemporary society will be discussed with particular emphasis on research and on the need to serve the community.We shall discuss an outline of some of the major unsolved problems which at present are largely ignored by Operational Research scientists. None of these problems involves or needs the development of formal mathematics and for that reason they are much more difficult than the normal problems on which mathematicians give their advice. The paper will try to convey the sense of intellectual excitement which is needed to be reintroduced into Operational Research, particularly in order to move away from the nervous, defensive and apologetic posture assumed by so many Operational Research scientists as a reaction to recent criticisms.     

Corporate Planning and Operational Research

Corporate Planning is a multi-dimensional activity. It can no longer be thought of as a largely analytical process to which OR can make a contribution through its quantitative techniques. This may be a reason why Operational Researchers seem to be losing their pre-eminent position as corporate model builders. So that it can regain that position OR will have to consider constructing models that incorporate political as well as psychological variables and models that allow managers to manage.     

A Constantly Evolving O.R. Team

The aim of this paper is to present the activities of the Operational Research team of the Paris Transport Authority (the R.A.T.P.), but without going into the technical details of methods and results. The paper is in three parts:

• - general information on the O.R. team and its environment;
• - the history of its activities;
• -its present and future tendencies.

     

Examining the strategy development process through the lens of complex adaptive systems theory

The development of strategy remains a debate for academics and a concern for practitioners. Published research has focused on producing models for strategy development and on studying how strategy is developed in organisations. The Operational Research literature has highlighted the importance of considering complexity within strategic decision making; but little has been done to link strategy development with complexity theories, despite organisations and organisational environments becoming increasingly more complex. We review the dominant streams of strategy development and complexity theories. Our theoretical investigation results in the first conceptual framework which links an established Strategic Operational Research model, the Strategy Development Process model, with complexity via Complex Adaptive Systems theory. We present preliminary findings from the use of this conceptual framework applied to a longitudinal, in-depth case study, to demonstrate the advantages of using this integrated conceptual model. Our research shows that the conceptual model proposed provides rich data and allows for a more holistic examination of the strategy development process.     

A Role for Operational Research in Health Care Planning and Management Teams

This paper describes a research team's effort in which a formal mathematical model played an integrating and coordinating role for a multidisciplinary team which included operational researchers, economists, nurses, social workers, social scientists and psychiatrists. It is an interpretative history of the OARS project, its development and results which emphasizes the role of the formal model in the conduct of the project.This is an application of Operational Research to a significant social problem which also suggests an important role for Operational Researchers in Health Care Planning and Management Teams.     

Problem Structuring — A Literature Review

In recent years there has been an increasing awareness of the importance of methodology in Operational Research. The work on which this paper is based was done as a first step in an attempt at empirical investigation of Problem Structuring in the practice of O.R.First, the term Problem Structuring is explained. The paper then summarises the treatments of problem structuring found in the O.R. and related literature, and describes the themes running through that literature in terms of four "streams of thought".     

Supporting the strategy process: a survey of UK OR/MS practitioners

This paper reports the results of an online survey conducted with practitioner members of the UK Operational Research (OR) Society. The purpose of the survey was to explore the current practice of supporting the strategy process in terms of activities supported and tools used. The results of the survey are compared to those of previous surveys to explore developments in, inter alia, the use of management/strategy tools and ‘soft’ Operational Research/Management Science (OR/MS) tools. The survey results demonstrate that OR practitioners actively support the strategy process within their organisations. While a wide variety of tools, drawn from the OR/MS and management/strategy fields, are used to support the strategy process within organisations, the findings suggest that soft OR/MS tools are not regularly used. The findings also demonstrate that tools are combined to support the strategy process from both within and across the OR/MS and management/strategy fields. The paper ends by identifying a number of areas for further research.