Implementation in Operational Research: a Review of the Operational Research Quarterly

This paper focuses on the changing nature of the subject matter of articles reported in the Operational Research Quarterly from 1965 to 1974. Subject matter classifications are developed and then investigated over time. In addition, tabulations describing both implementations and use of actual data are illustrated. Significantly, it is shown that the percent of implementations described in the Journal have averaged less than 30% during the period 1965-1974. In addition it is shown that of the remaining articles published during this period only 17% use actual data.     

The Many Faces of OR. Plenary Address,Operational Research Society Annual Conference,Bangor, Wales, 11 September 1990

The opening plenary address to the ORS National Conference had as its general theme OR as practised around the world. The subthemes were concerned with the status and future of OR; the transfer of OR technology, particularly to developing countries; model evaluation; and ethical problems in OR, with specific reference to public policy.     

Operational Research '75: Proceedings of the Seventh IFORS International Conference on Operational Research

Journal of the Operational Research Society -     

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.     

War Gaming as a Technique in the Study of Operational Research Problems

The last 10 years have seen an immense amount of effort, both here and abroad, concentrated on the development of war games that can be used for the study of many of the important problems that arise in military operational research. The first part of this paper describes in general terms the background to such operational problems, their difficulties and complexities, and explains why war gaming is regarded as a particularly appropriate technique in their examination.On this basis, the fundamental conceptual development of a war game representing a land battle is described, and is illustrated by reference to the Army Operational Research Establishment (AORE) War Game. Practical experience with this and other hand-played games allows some of the advantages and disadvantages of this type of war game to be enumerated, and leads naturally to a discussion of computer-assisted games, and of the relationship between games and analytical models of combat. It is concluded that each of these approaches has its own particular advantages, and that it will usually be appropriate to use combinations of them in the study of major problems.     

Effective Operational Research within the Organization: Corporate Planning,Sessions 1 and 2

The paper describes a 5-year sequence of research activities and the associated stages of implementation of resulting “practical” methods for relating standards of service and manpower requirements in an airline's telephone reservations offices. It goes on to review some important reappraisals of the standards of service in terms of their effects on the customer and on the direct cost of operation of such facilities. It also describes work which is in progress to improve the method of forecasting telephone workload, and to produce a fully automated system for budgeting and planning. The paper concludes by drawing some lessons from the experiences gained over the 5-year period which may help others engaged in similar studies.     

Leader — Special Conference Issue: Decision-Making,Operational Research and the Systems Approach

Journal of the Operational Research Society -     

On the maximal,commutative, subalgebras of 14 by 14 matrices

If we consider 0, the set of all maximal, commutative, k-subalgebras of 14 by 14 matrices over a field k whose dimension is 13 and index of Jacobson radical is 3, then it was conjectured that the set Ω has only one class up to isomorphism. In this paper, we will prove that the set Ω has at least two isomorphism classes. We will prove R ε Ω doesn't imply that R is a (B, N)construction. We will also prove the (B^N)-construction depends on the field k.     

Management,Operational Research and the Micro: A Critical Review of What is Available

This paper reviews the state of the microcomputer market as at January 1981. The authors have been involved in computer systems for many years and began working with microcomputers towards the end of 1978. Since then, they have had experience of nearly 20 varied microcomputer installations. A version of the paper was first given at the two-day seminar. ‘Management, Operational Resarch and the Micro’, held in London during November 1980.