operation research : It’s goal and history

  In many dictionaries ,the word ,OR, has been lexically interpreted to mathematical and scientific analysis of a process or an operation in order to take a decision.some assume that this topic was coined by charles babbage (1791-1871) because of his large scale researches about cost of transportation and organizing of postal packages in 1840 and also studying the behavior of rail transportation equipments.

  Developed branch (operation research) that we can look for in current books ,had come into view during the second world war. patrick blackett ,sisil gardon , wadington ,vansberg ,jones and frank yates from England and george dantzig from the united states were the main pepole who have developed this method during the course.their effort was to take better decisions in the fields like didactic support and scheduling.after the war the same way was used especially in industry.

  What is OR?

  Briefly ,OR , is the knowledge to apply developed analytical methods in order to take better decisions.Using methods like ,mathematical modeling for analyzing complex situations ,OR gives the executive managers the ability of taking more appropriate decisions and creating efficient and beneficial systems in some cases such as :

  · complex data sets

  · Considering the whole existing conditions and limitations

  · Exactly forecasting the results and risk evaluation

  · applying the most advanced methods and decision tools

  A unique approach to decision

  perhaps you have seen dozens of papers and articles about the solutions which claim that they can make taking decisions easier for you. OR is a unique approach that implements developed and also complex methods with the help of trained individuals. OR especially has the ability to use the dveloped tools and methods that can feed the ability of analyzing that common softwares including spreadsheets are unable to do. in other words an OR expert has the ability to define major challenges you face in your business field and provides methods for transparency and using your required data. To achieve these results ,OR experts draw their projects in line with the latest technology to analyze and evaluate in order to find the valuable communications and appropriate prospectives and effective adoption of predictions ,which means :

  · Simulation that provides you the ability of testing the approaches and ideas ,for further improvement

  · Optimization : reducing the number of decision options to limited but optimal ones, but in the absence that feasible options are infinite and comparing them is too difficult.

  · Probability and statistics

  · Other issues such as risk monitoring and data checking

  OR is currently around you

  OR has advanced our organizations and experts : namely, from better scheduling of airline employees to design better waiting lines in entertainment parks ,and from production palnning, to optimizing hundreds of local distribution centers and etc. in other words we can say with confidence that applying OR produces many benefits.

  What can OR do for us

  OR can continuously pass important values ranging from strategic ones to tactical ones,to the entire organization. It means that the global commercial organizations, military institutions, medical centers and public centers all together receive major benefits from OR.

  For example cases like :

  Commercial perspectives : engage Commercial and quantitative perspectives in complex problems

  Commercial proceeds : improving Commercial proceeds utilizing the model based intelligence, In a relation with the collection of data for better decision making.

  Cost reduction : looking for new opportunities for reducing costs or investment

  Decision making : evaluation of the most possible results of decision options and making the better options clear

  Prediction : providing an appropriate platform for more accurate forecasting and scheduling

  Advanced scheduling : more efficient scheduling for staff and equipments

  Planning : using quantitative methods to suppor the operations and also strategic and tactical planning

  Pricing : dynamic pricing of products and services

  Efficiency : helping organizations to find the ways of making human resources and processes more efficient

  Benefits : income or return on investment growth, market stocks growth

  Quality : quality improvement along with making quantitative and qualitative balance

  Improvement : utilizing better control and better marginal profit

  Resources : utilizing more by equipments, facilities, money and people

  Risk : quantitative risk monitoring and critical factors transparency in management and risk reduction

  Loading rate : increasing the loading speed and reducing the delays

  OR responds to the challenges you are facing ,nowadays.

  everyday organizations and the world we are working in, are getting more complicated .plenty of choices and time limitations and marginal decisions in relation to issues around ,have made them harder. In this regard ,applicative softwares which are producing and processing every day ,use lots of data and can open new doors to taking more appropriate decisions. so the OR article can be used in challenging fields with a large number of variables and also numerous risks in a proper way. Briefly ,OR can help many executive managers who are facing major challenges .namely :

  · which section’s investment increases the recieved profit

  · profit more by CRM and ERP and other software systems

  · the best way to manage a call center

  · locating a warehouse considering the product of cost and distance

  · forecasting a new type of products which have not come to the market before

  · solving the complex scheduling problems

  · planning for a potential terrorist attack

  · decisions regarding when and what extent we discount

  · get more production cycles from construction equipments

  · optimum investment in the absence of that financial security or existing pharmaceutical and health inventory is considered.

  · deciding based on how much budget to spend for conventional or internet sales

  · planting products the absence of air and uncertain demand

  · accelerating the response time ,related to 110 police and fire fighters

 with the above explanations , Utilizing OR for survival in the present circumstances is a necessity.in other words for excellence and growth of organizations and companies ,it should be used in large scale,otherwise we wont have a good horizon ahead.