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.     

The Use of Operational Research Tools: A Survey of Operational Research Practitioners in the UK

Given the importance of understanding decision making processes within organizations, studies of the attitudes of Operational Research practitioners towards specific aspects of their work is a neglected area of research. This paper furnishes an account of a questionnaire-based survey of industrially based OR practitioners selected from the membership of the Operational Research Society. The objective of the study is to assess the views of OR practitioners regarding the modelling and problem solving tools that are available to them. In particular, the issues of technique selection, the treatment of uncertainty, and the perceived contribution of Operational Research to decision issues are investigated. Results from the survey contribute towards both a greater understanding of OR practitioners' perspectives on the decision support process and the development of a profile of the membership of the OR Society.     

OR—a personal perspective

The occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Journal of the Operational Research Society provides the opportunity for reflection and reminiscing about Operational Research (OR). In this note a personal reflection on the nature of OR is offered. Some ideas are suggested to account for the success and failure of OR and some challenges are noted for its forward progress.     

Ethics outside,within, or beyond OR models?

Since ethical concerns are calling for more attention within Operational Research, we present three approaches to combine Operational Research models with ethics. Our intention is to clarify the trade-offs faced by the OR community, in particular the tension between the scientific legitimacy of OR models (ethics outside OR models) and the integration of ethics within models (ethics within OR models). Presenting and discussing an approach that combines OR models with the process of OR (ethics beyond OR models), we suggest rigorous ways to express the relation between ethics and OR models. As our work is exploratory, we are trying to avoid a dogmatic attitude and call for further research. We argue that there are interesting avenues for research at the theoretical, methodological and applied levels and that the OR community can contribute to an innovative, constructive and responsible social dialogue about its ethics.     

Preliminary Findings of a Survey of OR Society Membership

This paper presents the preliminary findings of a survey carried out into modelling. The survey consisted of sending a questionnaire to all members of the Operational Research Society (42% response rate).The survey investigated the structure of the OR Society membership; the educational background of OR Society members; the functional involvement, skill requirements and time division of OR Society members; the frequency of use of modelling areas by OR Society members; the types of computers used by OR Society members, and their involvement with decision support systems and expert systems. Full details of the survey, questionnaires and results are given in the paper.     

Overview of OR practice in Taiwan companies

This paper presents the results of a questionnaire survey of Operational Research (OR) practice in business organizations in Taiwan, Republic of China—a newly industrialized country. Questions concerning the number of OR professionals, specific OR techniques being used, common OR users, reasons for not using OR, and the supporting factors and difficulties encountered in practice were posed to the top 1000 manufacturing firms and top 1000 service organizations. Replies from 249 respondents provide some insight into the use of OR in Taiwan's business organizations. The results are very informative for companies wishing to extend their use of OR and for educational institutions to design better OR curriculum to fit industries' needs.     

Soft OR in China: A critical report

As China’s reform steps into the ‘deep water zone’ where value complexity becomes paramount, general-purpose decision-making aids such as Operational Research (OR) are increasingly confronted with the challenge of dealing with interest conflicts. However, due to historical events and institutional circumstances, OR in China to date is largely constrained by a technocratic approach which is not fit for purpose. Encouragingly, recent OR innovations inside China signify a conscious move to embrace value plurality and tackle social conflicts. OR is not merely a neutral tool for solving technical problems, but a world-building discourse that shapes society. The future of OR, particularly Soft OR, in China will be determined by whether OR workers are willing and capable to act as institutional entrepreneurs promoting scientific and democratic decision-making that deepens the reform toward an open, just and prosperous society. The implications go beyond the OR community and China’s borders.     

Operational Research at Risk

Operational Research is essentially about change; changing established methods and procedures, changing organizations, changing communication systems and changing the modes of thinking. Hence introducing OR into a traditional industry creates major problems which are evident in all organizations when existing systems are changed but which are thrown into sharp relief and usually result in conflict situations where current practice is backed up by lengthy historical associations.This paper outlines the experiences of introducing and operating a small OR group in such a situation, the mistakes, the triumphs, the lessons learned and the future prospects.     

OR in healthcare: A European perspective

The European Working Group “Operational Research Applied to Health Services” (ORAHS) is one of the domain specific EURO Working Groups organized by EURO - the European Association of Operational Research Societies. In this paper we report on the development of ORAHS as a platform for OR in health, and analyse the papers presented at meetings over the 35 years of its existence. We propose a two-way framework for analysis, where one dimension is the nine stages of the product life cycle: identifying consumer requirements, designing a new service to meet these requirements, forecasting demand for such a service, securing resources for it, allocating these resources, developing Programs & Plans to use these resources for delivering the service, establishing criteria for service delivery, managing the performance of the service, and finally, evaluating its performance. The other dimension is a three-level classification into broad application areas referring to processes at different levels in healthcare: Patients & Providers, Units & Hospitals, and Regional & National. We use this framework to carry out a quantitative analysis of all the papers presented during the meetings of ORAHS since its inception in 1975. We then describe developments over this period in applying OR approaches and techniques to healthcare, and present an overview of the main application areas and challenges.     

On the importance of behavioral operational research: The case of understanding and communicating about dynamic systems

We point out the need for Behavioral Operational Research (BOR) in advancing the practice of OR. So far, in OR behavioral phenomena have been acknowledged only in behavioral decision theory but behavioral issues are always present when supporting human problem solving by modeling. Behavioral effects can relate to the group interaction and communication when facilitating with OR models as well as to the possibility of procedural mistakes and cognitive biases. As an illustrative example we use well known system dynamics studies related to the understanding of accumulation. We show that one gets completely opposite results depending on the way the phenomenon is described and how the questions are phrased and graphs used. The results suggest that OR processes are highly sensitive to various behavioral effects. As a result, we need to pay attention to the way we communicate about models as they are being increasingly used in addressing important problems like climate change.     

OR and the Social Sciences

The text is the opening address of the conference on OR and the Social Sciences organized by the Operational Research Society, in Cambridge, 10-13 April 1989.     

Developments in undergraduate education for operational research in the U.K. since 1965

Until quite recently most courses in Operational Research at Universities in the U.K. have been at postgraduate or post experience level. Entrance requirements have frequently been a degree or equivalent professional qualification, and for some of the more well established and popular courses, industrial experience in addition. An often used argument is that the inter-disciplinary origins and nature of Operational Reseach require those entering the profession to have basic training in some discipline, most commonly reflected in the possession of a degree or professional qualification. Frequently this is a scientific or quantitative subject. Engineering, Mathematics, Economics are common examples.In recent years, however, there has been an increasing trend within Universities to mount undergraduate courses involving substantial portions of material which is taught under the title of Operational Research. This paper looks at this trend in more detail, and the courses themselves are analysed. Some of the reasons for these developments are discussed, their effects on the OR Profession and the Education Sector outlined, and future trends suggested.     

Combining linear programming and automated planning to solve intermodal transportation problems

When dealing with transportation problems Operational Research (OR), and related areas as Artificial Intelligence (AI), have focused mostly on uni-modal transport problems. Due to the current existence of bigger international logistics companies, transportation problems are becoming increasingly more complex. One of the complexities arises from the use of intermodal transportation. Intermodal transportation reflects the combination of at least two modes of transport in a single transport chain, without a change of container for the goods. In this paper, a new hybrid approach is described which addresses complex intermodal transport problems. It combines OR techniques with AI search methods in order to obtain good quality solutions, by exploiting the benefits of both kinds of techniques. The solution has been applied to a real world problem from one of the largest spanish companies using intermodal transportation, Acciona Transmediterránea Cargo.     

The Content of MSc Operational Research Courses: Results of a Questionnaire to OR Groups

This paper presents the results of a survey of practising OR groups in UK organizations. The survey was conducted as part of the review procedures of Warwick University's MSc. in Operational Research. The aim was to elicit the views of OR practitioners as to the desirable content of such a course. The questionnaire was sent to 66 OR groups, of which 45 responded, and covered 75 different topics. As well as presenting the basic results, this paper explores the structure of the responses using factor analysis and attempts to classify the OR groups using cluster analysis. Comparisons are drawn with previous surveys and with the SERC OR panel recommendations.     

60 years of OR in Slovenia: development from a first conference to a vibrant community

The paper provides a short history of the operations research (OR) in Slovenia. Some major events and achievements are mentioned and briefly discussed. The period starts in the year 1964, with the first symposium on OR in Slovenia. In the following decades, there were several important milestones: (1) the start of master’s and Ph.D. studies in OR in 1974, (2) the establishment of SSI-SSOR in 1992 (SSI-SSOR stands for the Slovenian Section for Operational Research within the Slovenian Society of Informatics), and (3) the start of a series of symposia in operations research in 1993. All these activities resulted in an extensive list of publications, projects, and monographs and international connections, proving that OR is still a vibrant field, which facilitates knowledge transfer from pure research to business applications.

     

Three Case Studies of Operational Research for the Royal Air Force

Three case studies of Operational Research for the Royal Air Force are described. They illuminate the three main areas within which OR is carried out by the Ministry of Defence in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the RAF - maintenance, operations and manpower. The success of implementation of the work is discussed within the context of the Ministry of Defence.     

Success and survival of operational research groups—A review

Operational Research groups were established in private and public sector organizations following on from their success supporting the military in the Second World War. In the early years their numbers grew rapidly but by the mid-1970s evidence started to accumulate that they were being viewed less favourably. Many organizations chose not to set up OR groups. Established groups were closed down or dispersed to operating units in organizations, particularly during the recessionary periods. In 1993 following on the closures of some major OR groups in the UK, the Operational Research Society decided to fund research to examine those factors influencing a group's success and survival. This review, which forms part of the research, first examines the history of OR groups in the UK and North America, arguing that in practice they were one of a number of internal organizational consultancies. As such they were judged by their competitive performance. Despite the intent of the founding fathers of OR many groups found their scope was limited to mainly tactical problems using analytical model based approaches although there were exceptions that were successful in making major contributions at the strategic level also. Within their chosen fields of activity however many groups flourished whilst some failed. This review presents a comprehensive list of influences on success and survival. They include changes in the external environment, together with shifts in managerial style and culture, organizational factors, and the OR group itself. The review concludes that, while OR groups can do much to protect themselves from closure, organizational changes within a hostile managerial culture demand a creative response that acknowledges new requirements. Areas where an OR group has greatest influence over its effectiveness include its leadership and personnel, project balance and management. In addition, to be successful OR groups need to positively develop and market their services in an increasingly competitive managerial climate.     

MPSB Research Explained

Within the systems movement, there are multiple paths to develop systems methodologies and systems thinking. One way is to review various management technologies (e.g., Operational Research (OR), Information Systems Design, Accounting and Logistics Management) from a systems perspective. Multiperspective, Systems-based (MPSB) Research is a research programme, based on Critical Systems Thinking, that works along this path. A brief review of OR and Business Processing Re-engineering (BPR) is provided to facilitate an introduction to the MPSB research. This paper also defines the MPSB research and the terms used in it.