operations research

operations research, application of scientific methods to the management and administration of organized military, governmental, commercial, and industrial processes.

Basic aspects

Operations research attempts to provide those who manage organized systems with an objective and quantitative basis for decision; it is normally carried out by teams of scientists and engineers drawn from a variety of disciplines. Thus, operations research is not a science itself but rather the application of science to the solution of managerial and administrative problems, and it focuses on the performance of organized systems taken as a whole rather than on their parts taken separately. Usually concerned with systems in which human behaviour plays an important part, operations research differs in this respect from systems engineering, which, using a similar approach, tends to concentrate on systems in which human behaviour is not important. Operations research was originally concerned with improving the operations of existing systems rather than developing new ones; the converse was true of systems engineering. This difference, however, has been disappearing as both fields have matured.

The subject matter of operations research consists of decisions that control the operations of systems. Hence, it is concerned with how managerial decisions are and should be made, how to acquire and process data and information required to make decisions effectively, how to monitor decisions once they are implemented, and how to organize the decision-making and decision-implementation process. Extensive use is made of older disciplines such as logic, mathematics, and statistics, as well as more recent scientific developments such as communications theory, decision theory, cybernetics, organization theory, the behavioral sciences, and general systems theory.

In the 19th century the Industrial Revolution involved mechanization or replacement of human by machine as a source of physical work. Study and improvement of such work formed the basis of the field of industrial engineering. Many contemporary issues are concerned with automation or mechanization of mental work. The primary technologies involved are mechanization of symbol generation (observation by machines such as radar and sonar), mechanization of symbol transmission (communication by telephone, radio, and television), and mechanization of logical manipulation of symbols (data processing and decision making by computer). Operations research applies the scientific method to the study of mental work and provides the knowledge and understanding required to make effective use of personnel and machines to carry it out.