Advantages and Disadvantages (Limitations) of Operation Research:

In this article, we learn about the advantages and disadvantages (limitations) of Operation Research.

“Why do we need to learn Operations Research techniques is a question you might have.” Some reasons are as follows:

Since organisations are becoming more complex, the decisions you must make are becoming more difficult and challenging with large numbers of options, constant time pressure, and margin pressures. Environments are changing so rapidly that previous methods are no longer effective and sufficient. New enterprise applications and software are also producing enormous amounts of data, which can appear to be an extreme challenge to transform that data into knowledge and solutions. Making poor decisions now has higher costs.

Read Also: Approaches, Phases, Methodology Of OR / How OR works / Stages of Development of OR

♦ Advantages of Operation Research:

An O.R. approach helps in better decision-making and lowers the possibility of making erroneous decisions. Some advantages of Operation Research are as follows:

• An O.R. approach is frequently used to analyse a specific decision-making problem, such as the best location for factories, new warehouses etc. Locating a warehouse or depot that can deliver goods over shorter distances and at a lower cost is made easier with the help of operations research.

Read Also: Advantages of OR Approach in Decision-Making

• Operations Research helps to decide where to invest capital to grow.

• Operations research helps in forecasting sales for a new type of product that has never been marketed before.

• Operations research helps in deciding when and how much to discount.

• Operations research can help in deciding how much of a budget to spend on the Internet vs. traditional sales.

• Operations research aids in maximising the value of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management), and other software systems.

• Operations research helps in the optimization of an investment portfolio, whether it contains financial securities or pharmaceutical product inventory.

Read Also: Scope / Applications of OR

• Using operations research, call centres can be run in the most efficient manner.

• Operations research helps in solving complex scheduling problems and it also helps in inventory replenishment problems.

• Using operations research, planning can be done to prevent potential terrorist attacks.

• When there is uncertainty about the weather and consumer demand, operations research is helpful when planting crops.

Read Also: Management Applications of OR

♦ Disadvantages (Limitations) of Operations Research:

Operations Research has a number of applications; similarly, it also has certain limitations. These limitations are mostly related to the model building and money and time factors problems involved in its application. Some of them are as given below:

• These do not take into account qualitative and emotional factors.

• These are applicable to only specific categories of decision-making problems.

• These are required to be interpreted correctly.

• Due to conventional thinking, changes face a lot of resistance from workers and sometimes even from employers.

• Models are the only idealized representation of reality and not be regarded as absolute.

• The operations researcher’s job needs a mathematician or statistician, who might not be aware of the business problems. Similarly, a manager is unable to understand the complex nature of Operations Research. Thus there is a big gap between the two personnel.

• Operations analysis’s high cost is its most significant limitation. The operations investigation employs mathematical equations that necessitate the use of outstanding technology to create.

• The dependence on technology is another limitation of operations research. Computers are required to examine mathematical equations.

• The outcomes of operation research are often ideological, making them difficult to implement sometimes.

Read Also: Limitations of Operations Research in Decision Making

Read Also: Advantages and Disadvantages of a Model in Operation Research

(Source – Various books from college library)

Tags: limitation of operation research, advantages and disadvantages of operation research

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