The photograph shows Spitfires flying in formation. A common site over England in the early 1940s. It is well documented that OR techniques played an important part in defeating enemy planes by predicting flight patterns and helped the RAF respond to threats.

What is OR?

OR is the application of appropriate analytical methods to make better decisions.


OR is a means of making better decisions using available data to do so. Many problems can be structured to identify cause and effect. Relationships between dependent and independent variables can be established using statistics. Mathematics applied to real world problems is an example of OR in practice. OR also uses 'soft systems methodologes' to understand problems and gain qualitative as well as quantitative insights.


​The OR Society has useful resources for students and professionals wanting to know more about OR. If you are interested you can take a look here:- http://www.scienceofbetter.co.uk/about-or

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Many everyday problems faced by organizations can be solved through the application of OR tools and techniques. For example, the OR Society gives the following examples:-


  • Deciding where to invest capital in order to grow
  • Getting more value out of ERP, CRM, and other software systems
  • Figuring out the best way to run a call centre
  • Locating a warehouse or depot to deliver materials over shorter distances at reduced cost
  • Forecasting sales for a new kind of product that has never been marketed before
  • Solving complex scheduling problems
  • Planning for a potential terrorist attack
  • Deciding when to discount, and how much
  • Getting more cycles out of manufacturing equipment
  • Optimising a portfolio of investments, whether it contains financial securities or pharmaceutical product inventory
  • Deciding how large a budget to devote to Internet v traditional sales
  • Planting crops in the face of uncertainty about weather and consumer demand
  • Speeding up response time, whether selling a product or responding to a 999 call

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Some examples of the benefits OR can bring to organizations are:

  • Business insight Providing quantitative and business insight into complex problems
  • Business performance Improving business performance by embedding model-driven intelligence into an organisation’s information systems to improve decision making
  • Cost reduction Finding new opportunities to decrease cost or investment
  • Decision making Assessing the likely outcomes of decision alternatives and uncovering better alternatives
  • Forecasting Providing a better basis for more accurate forecasting and planning
  • Improved scheduling Efficiently scheduling staff, equipment, events, and more
  • Planning Applying quantitative techniques to support operations, tactical planning, and strategic planning
  • Pricing Dynamically pricing products and services
  • Productivity Helping organisations find ways to make processes and people more productive
  • Profits Increasing revenue or return on investment; increasing market share
  • Quality Improving quality as well as quantifying and balancing qualitative considerations
  • Recovery Gaining greater control and achieving turn-around
  • Resources Gaining greater utilisation from limited equipment, facilities, money, and personnel
  • Risk Measuring risk quantitatively and uncovering factors critical to managing and reducing risk
  • Throughput Increasing speed or throughput and decreasing delays

Source: The OR Society

Predictive analytics may be defined as “Technology that learns from experience (data) to predict future behaviour of individuals in order to drive better decisions”(Siegel, 2016).[1]


[1] Individual in this definition is taken to mean organizations as well. For example, corporations are treated as persons under law.

Operational Research is the application of scientific method to management decisions.


All types of problems can be addressed. These can range from policy decisions taken by government through to promotional decisions taken by supermarkets. All types of organization can benefit from understanding what operational research is and what it can do. 


Techniques employed by OR specialists include: Forecasting methods, queing theory, linear programming, and network analysis.


Decision making that involves human beings has two aspects to consider: First is the optimum technical solution; Second is an understanding of social processes and consequences of choosing the optimum technical solution. The term 'soft OR' was coined to recognise the latter and has developed a rigorous set of tools and techniques to deliver solutions to human problems that are acceptable to the communities they serve. This includes in managers, employees and stakeholders in organizations.


Prof Hines has applied OR techniques to solve supply chain problems e.g. throughput / flow, inventory problems, store promotions, event planning, range planning for retailers and brands, pricing decisions, locational decisions, sourcing decisions and forecasting. Soft OR techniques have been adopted to structure problems and to explore the process of human decision-making working with Board Executives and Senior Management Teams. 


Note: Scientific Method is a term often used and students ask the question what is it? In simple terms scientific method is a rigorous set of procedures established to find out something. It is the essence of research. 'Scientific Method' as Karl Popper explained is a means of establishing new knowledge based on evidence. If new evidence is brought to light then knoweldge is revised to take account of it. If you follow scientific method you accept this principle. 

Definition

​Science is the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence (The Science Council - UK).

The photograph shows the Airbus aircraft known as the 'Beluga' because of its odd whale like shape. It is infact an Airbus A300-600 wide body jet specially designed to take its cargo between BAe sites. The plane is used to transport wings manufactured in Broughton shipped to Toulouse for final assembly. The adapted cargo plane costs around $285 million per unit. It first flew in 1994 entering full-service in 1996. The Beluga has now been in service for over twenty years. Airbus previously (1984-1995) used 'super Guppies' which were ironically built by Boeing. Prior to that road transport was used. The Beluga XL a bigger version of the existing Beluga is likely to enter service in 2019 based on a modified A330. Many OR applications are involved in relation to design and operation of such an aircraft.

Systems Thinking and Systems Practice are closely related. Peter Checkland wanted to test whether systems engineering approaches that had been successful in solving technical problems could be used by managers to solve complex organizational problems. His work linked systems thinking to real-world practice to understand these complexities and 'Soft Systems Methodology' (SSM) was developed as the means to do so.

Progress is achieved through rigorous analysis and better evidence-based decisions.