Evolution and Historical Development of Operation Research

Evolution and Historical Development of Operation Research:

In order to understand ‘what Operation Research (OR) is today,’ we must know something about its history and evolution.

• The main origin of Operation Research was during the Second World War, when there was a critical need to manage scarce resources.

• At that time, the military management in England called upon a team of scientists to study the strategic and tactical problems related to air and land defence of the country. Since they were having very limited military resources, it was necessary to decide upon the most effective utilization of them, e.g. efficient ocean transport, effective bombing, etc.

• During World War-2^nd, no individuals were able to give proper solutions so several inter-disciplinary teams were formed of different specialists such as mathematicians, economists, engineers, scientists etc. to deal with strategic & tactical problems of various military operations.

• Their mission was to formulate specific proposals and plans for aiding the Military Commands to arrive at the decisions on optimal utilization of scarce military resources and efforts, and also to implement the decisions effectively.

• Thus OR team were not actually engaged in military operations and in fighting the war. But they were only advisors and significantly instrumental in winning the war to the extent that the scientific and systematic approaches involved in OR provided a good intellectual support to the strategic initiatives of the military commands.

• Hence, OR is associated with “an art of winning the war without actually fighting it”

• Hence, Operation research was apparently invented because the team was dealing with research on (military) operations. The work of this team was named as Operation research in UK.

• Following the end of the war, the success of this team attracted the attention of Industrial managers who were seeking solutions to their complex executive type problems.

• The most common problem was “what method should be adopted so that the total cost is minimum or total profits maximum?”

• The first mathematical technique in this field was developed by G.B. Dantzig In 1947. He developed the concept of linear programming, the solution of which is formed by a method known as the simplex method.

• Today, in every organization such as banks, hospitals, airways, railways etc., operation research helps in improving efficiency.

• In 1948, OR club was formed in England, later becoming the Operation Research Society of UK.

• In 1952, the OR Society of America (ORSA) was formed.

• In 1953, Professor P.C. Mohalanobis, establish an OR team in Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Calcutta for solving problems related to national planning & survey.

• The International Federation of the Operation Research Society (IFORS) was formed in which different countries participated.

In recent years, operation research had an increasingly great impact on the management of organizations.

Many industries including aircraft and missiles, automobiles, communication, computer, electronics, mining paper, petroleum and transportation have made widespread use of OR in determining their tactical and strategical decisions more scientifically.

If the model is carefully formulated and tested, the resulting solution should reach to be a good approximation to the ideal course of action for the real problem. Although, we may not get the best answers, but definitely we are able to find the bad answers where worse exist. Thus operations research techniques are always able to save us from worse situations in practical life.

(Source – Various books of college library)

Tags: Historical development of operational research

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