Strategy,performance and operational research

This paper explores the nature of operational research and its interactions with performance measurement and strategy. It is argued that operational research (OR) is well fitted to handle strategic issues as the modelling approach of OR facilitates understanding and learning, and the evaluation of strategies prior to action. The development of problem structuring methods is also a key aid to strategy and policy formulation. OR is also beginning to play a role in performance measurement and there is an opportunity for OR to lead in the improvement of performance measurement systems.     

Data envelopment analysis,operational research and uncertainty

This paper discusses a number of applications of data envelopment analysis and the nature of uncertainty in those applications. It then reviews the key approaches to handling uncertainty in data envelopment analysis (DEA) (imprecise DEA, bootstrapping, Monte Carlo simulation and chance constrained DEA) and considers their suitability for modelling the applications. The paper concludes with suggestions about the challenges facing an operational research analyst in applying DEA in real-world situations.     

The practice of operational research in Taiwan

This paper presents the results of a questionnaire survey of operational research/management science (OR/MS) practices in Taiwanese companies. The survey was addressed to the current status and future perspectives of OR/MS in Taiwan. During the spring of 2001, 2000 questionnaires were mailed to the top 1000 domestic manufacturing firms and top 1000 domestic service organizations. These asked questions concerning specific OR/MS techniques being used, application areas of OR/MS, reasons for using OR/MS, reasons for not using OR/MS, difficulties encountered practically, and future perspectives. Results from 262 valid respondents provided several informative findings. Compared with the 1995 survey of Kao et al, it found that the percentage of companies that have used OR/MS techniques increased from 62.7% in 1995 to 76.7% in 2001. Also, the percentage of companies that have never heard of OR/MS decreased from 16.1% in 1995 to 11.1% in 2001. Because of the Taiwan government recently developing educational and training programs in OR/MS, it found that the importance of OR/MS has been recognized by Taiwan companies as an efficient management tool for economic development, and the usage of OR/MS will continuously increase.     

Optimal selection of R&D projects

A model for the selection process of research and development (R&D) projects belonging to some common area and submitted to a funding agency is presented. Every project is evaluated, the result of this procedure providing the agency with some useful information about the distribution of the project's payoff. The uncertainty due to the unknown perspectives of the whole area of R&D is incorporated in a Bayesian way, so that the agency learns about the area value from the projects already handled. After specifying the model assumptions, adaptive dynamic programming techniques are applied to develop an optimal funding strategy for a given number of submitted projects. Some qualitative properties of the optimal strategy are derived, and the asymptotical behavior of the maximum expected reward is determined.     

Management accounting and operational research

We discuss some topics relating to management accounting and operational research. Because of the wide area of application of operational research techniques in management accounting we had to make a choice and limited us to budgetting through input-output analysis, cost-volume-profit analysis and transfer prices in decentralized organisations.     

Systems approaches and operational research

It is often stated that OR embodies a systems approach. What is meant by this varies widely from simple holism to abstract philosophy. This paper considers the impact that a systems orientation can have on the practice of OR by providing a language for analysis. As a language or framework it has severe limitations which are set out in the paper. Nevertheless, the paper concludes by arguing that a pragmatic systems viewpoint can be valuable.     

The origins and diffusion of operational research in the UK

This paper analyses the origins and diffusion of operational research in the UK from the end of the Second World War to 1970. After acknowledging ORs military origins, the paper discusses the process of diffusion into the civilian sector. In this context, the critical role fulfilled by OR groups in the coal and iron and steel industries is highlighted, as well as the individual advocacy of key individuals such as Sir Charles Goodeve. The paper also comments on the development of OR in the UK corporate sector by presenting a number of representative case studies. It concludes with an examination of the factors which encouraged the diffusion of OR into civil government after 1965, contrasting this development with the muted response of Whitehall departments in the late 1940s.     

The role of operational research in organizational decision making

An increase in the complexity of modern organisations and their interactions with the environment and each other has lead to a corresponding increase in the complexity of the organizational decision making process and the various factors on which decisions need to be based. Although there is currently much debate amongst both OR academics and practitioners as to how OR should respond to this increase in complexity the public manifestations of this debate have been confined largely to academics talking to each other.This paper is intended to contribute to a rectification of this situation by indicating how OR is currently used in one particular large, bureaucratic, high technology organization, and how it is spontaneously evolving to meet the demands of increased complexity. This discussion is based on an empirical study, and on experience of the author of OR in this and other similar organizations.It is concluded that very few major decisions appear to be directly influenced by OR studies although the latter are frequently used in a ‘justification’ role to support decisions already taken. An increase in awareness is however becoming apparent of the many indirect benefits that may accrue to the organization from the OR process. The nature of these indirect benefits and the ways in which they might be increased are discussed.     

McNaughton and Canadian operational research at Vimy

One of the defining events of Canadian history was the celebrated Canadian Corps victory at Vimy during World War I. In this paper we outline the counter-battery work of Andrew McNaughton and his operational research team. In particular we detail their scientific approach to determining the location of German artillery.     

Forecasting and operational research: a review

From its foundation, operational research (OR) has made many substantial contributions to practical forecasting in organizations. Equally, researchers in other disciplines have influenced forecasting practice. Since the last survey articles in JORS, forecasting has developed as a discipline with its own journals. While the effect of this increased specialization has been a narrowing of the scope of OR's interest in forecasting, research from an OR perspective remains vigorous. OR has been more receptive than other disciplines to the specialist research published in the forecasting journals, capitalizing on some of their key findings. In this paper, we identify the particular topics of OR interest over the past 25 years. After a brief summary of the current research in forecasting methods, we examine those topic areas that have grabbed the attention of OR researchers: computationally intensive methods and applications in operations and marketing. Applications in operations have proved particularly important, including the management of inventories and the effects of sharing forecast information across the supply chain. The second area of application is marketing, including customer relationship management using data mining and computer-intensive methods. The paper concludes by arguing that the unique contribution that OR can continue to make to forecasting is through developing models that link the effectiveness of new forecasting methods to the organizational context in which the models will be applied. The benefits of examining the system rather than its separate components are likely to be substantial.     

Fifty years of operational research and emergency response

Over the past 50 years, a wealth of applications has resulted from researchers turning their attention to operations such as fire suppression, law enforcement and ambulance services. The 1970s might even be argued as the ‘golden age’ of this particular effort, producing many of the seminal works in fire station location planning, unit assignment and ambulance queuing models. Such efforts naturally continue through to the present, but with a focus shifting away from earlier contexts of established urban emergency service systems. Simultaneously, current evidence from the field suggests that far more work remains. In this paper, we review the operational research (OR) foundation in emergency response so far, highlighting the fact that most of what has been accomplished addresses the well-structured problems of emergency services. This, in turn, offers an explanation for some paradoxical challenges from the field: most of emergency response itself is semi-structured, at best. While OR has traditionally focused on the management of an organization, emergency response ultimately requires the management of disorganization, suggesting an important OR growth area for the next 50 years.     

The selection of joint projects by a consortium: Cost sharing mechanisms

This paper considers the problem of project selection and cost allocation for a partly decentralised organisation such as a research consortium, whose members have conflicting preferences and limited budgets. Three normative properties that project selection and cost sharing mechanisms which should satisfy are proposed. We introduce a class of efficient mechanisms called willingness to pay that satisfies the properties and solves the interdependent selection and allocation mechanisms through mathematical programming. These mathematical programming procedures are shown first, to improve upon existing cost sharing plans used in practice, and second, to be undominated by any other selection and allocation mechanism that satisfies the properties. However, in the case of private information the procedures are not incentive compatible. For this case, we provide an incentive compatible, though inefficient, mechanism, and prove that no efficient mechanism can exist for this class of problems.     

Reflections on fifty years of operational research

This paper provides a particular perspective on developments in operational research (OR) over the past 50 years and attempts to pick out significant milestones in that trajectory. Emphasis is placed on the UK experience (rather than taking a supposed perspective independent of interactions with any specific social context); on the significance of techniques and where they came from; and on the role of social, political, intellectual, and economic factors in what has been happening to and within OR.     

Enhancing management's understanding of operational research models

The problem of the gap between management's understanding of a model and the model builder's insight is a large one. This problem continues to challenge the practice of operational research and plague contemporary modelling efforts. This paper offers an approach to enhancing a manager's understanding of the model with respect to an application. It sets out a procedure whereby (a) the reasons for the management's judgements are uncovered, and (b) the sources of disagreement with the recommendations obtained from the model are identified. The manager, learning from the model, may then change his or her judgements. Alternatively, the model builder may modify the model parameters or assumptions, leading to convergent understanding. The procedure is based on the framework of social judgement theory. An illustrative example is offered in the context of facility planning in the cement manufacturing industry.     

Independent learning and operational research in the classroom

While Operational Research and Education are common keywords in OR journals, most work focuses on course content. Relatively little has been written about processes of education and learning in OR. This paper adds to this important area by considering the use of more Independent Learning (IL) in Operational Research education. Included is an explanation of IL and justification for using it. Activities which encourage IL are described and supported by three case studies which give examples of how an academic might introduce IL into a range of OR education settings. Other topics include IL and assessment, arguments against the use of IL, and critical success factors.     

The relationship between decision support systems and operational research: Health care examples

This paper explores, via selected case studies, the relationship between DSS and OR in the health field. Although I believe that DSS offers nothing really new, as described by various writers the term does emphasise particular features which should be desirable goals in any OR study. These features are: an emphasis on flexibility and adaptability, on ease of use and understanding by non-computer people and on models linked with traditional data access. The paper discusses such features and their desirability, in relation to hospital based planning/management on the one hand and community based planning on the other.     

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.     

QoS-aware service evaluation and selection

Making the provision of services QoS-aware is to the advantage of both clients and providers in the e-business domain. This paper studies the problem of providers that receive multiple concurrent requests for services demonstrating different QoS properties. It introduces the “Selective Multiple Choice Knapsack Problem” that aims to identify the services, which should be delivered in order to maximise the provider’s profit, subject to maximum bandwidth constraints. This problem is solved by a proposed algorithm that has been empirically evaluated via numerous experiments.