Operations research

For the academic journal, seeOperations Research (journal).

Operations research(British English:operational research) (U.S.Air Force Specialty Code:Operations Analysis), often shortened to theinitialismOR,is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve decision-making.The termmanagement scienceis occasionally used as a synonym.

Employing techniques from other mathematical sciences, such asmodeling,statistics,andoptimization,operations research arrives at optimal or near-optimal solutions todecision-makingproblems. Because of its emphasis on practical applications, operations research has overlapped with many other disciplines, notablyindustrial engineering.Operations research is often concerned with determining the extreme values of some real-world objective: themaximum(of profit, performance, or yield) or minimum (of loss, risk, or cost). Originating in military efforts beforeWorld War II,its techniques have grown to concern problems in a variety of industries.

Overview

Operational research (OR) encompasses the development and the use of a wide range ofproblem-solvingtechniques and methods applied in the pursuit of improved decision-making and efficiency, such assimulation,mathematical optimization,queueing theoryand otherstochastic-processmodels,Markov decision processes,econometric methods,data envelopment analysis,ordinal priority approach,neural networks,expert systems,decision analysis,and theanalytic hierarchy process.Nearly all of these techniques involve the construction of mathematical models that attempt to describe the system. Because of the computational and statistical nature of most of these fields, OR also has strong ties tocomputer scienceandanalytics.Operational researchers faced with a new problem must determine which of these techniques are most appropriate given the nature of the system, the goals for improvement, and constraints on time and computing power, or develop a new technique specific to the problem at hand (and, afterwards, to that type of problem).

The major sub-disciplines (but not limited to) in modern operational research, as identified by the journalOperations ResearchandThe Journal of the Operational Research Societyare:

• Computing and information technologies
• Financial engineering
• Manufacturing,service sciences,andsupply chain management
• Policy modeling and public sector work
• Revenue management
• Simulation
• Stochastic models
• Transportation theory
• Game theoryfor strategies
• Linear programming
• Nonlinear programming
• Integer programminginNP-complete problemspecially for 0-1 integer linear programming for binary
• Dynamic programminginAerospace engineeringandEconomics
• Information theoryused inCryptography,Quantum computing
• Quadratic programmingfor solutions ofQuadratic equationandQuadratic function

History

In the decades after the two world wars, the tools of operations research were more widely applied to problems in business, industry, and society. Since that time, operational research has expanded into a field widely used in industries ranging from petrochemicals to airlines, finance, logistics, and government, moving to a focus on the development of mathematical models that can be used to analyse and optimize sometimes complex systems, and has become an area of active academic and industrial research.

Historical origins

In the 17th century, mathematiciansBlaise PascalandChristiaan Huygenssolved problems involving sometimes complex decisions (problem of points) by usinggame-theoreticideas andexpected values;others, such asPierre de FermatandJacob Bernoulli,solved these types of problems usingcombinatorial reasoninginstead.Charles Babbage's research into the cost of transportation and sorting of mail led to England'suniversal "Penny Post"in 1840, and to studies into the dynamical behaviour of railway vehicles in defence of theGWR's broad gauge.Beginning in the 20th century, study of inventory management could be consideredthe origin of modern operations research witheconomic order quantitydeveloped byFord W. Harrisin 1913. Operational research mayhave originated in the efforts of military planners duringWorld War I(convoy theory andLanchester's laws).Percy Bridgmanbrought operational research to bear on problems in physics in the 1920s and would later attempt to extend these to the social sciences.

Modern operational research originated at theBawdsey Research Stationin the UK in 1937 as the result of an initiative of the station's superintendent,A. P. RoweandRobert Watson-Watt.Rowe conceived the idea as a means to analyse and improve the working of the UK'searly-warning radarsystem, code-named "Chain Home"(CH). Initially, Rowe analysed the operating of the radar equipment and its communication networks, expanding later to include the operating personnel's behaviour. This revealed unappreciated limitations of the CH network and allowed remedial action to be taken.

Scientists in the United Kingdom (includingPatrick Blackett(later Lord Blackett OM PRS),Cecil Gordon,Solly Zuckerman,(later Baron Zuckerman OM, KCB, FRS),C. H. Waddington,Owen Wansbrough-Jones,Frank Yates,Jacob BronowskiandFreeman Dyson), and in the United States (George Dantzig) looked for ways to make better decisions in such areas aslogisticsand training schedules.

Second World War

The modern field of operational research arose during World War II.In the World War II era, operational research was defined as "a scientific method of providing executive departments with a quantitative basis for decisions regarding the operations under their control".Other names for it included operational analysis (UK Ministry of Defence from 1962)and quantitative management.

During theSecond World Warclose to 1,000 men and women in Britain were engaged in operational research. About 200 operational research scientists worked for theBritish Army.

Patrick Blackettworked for several different organizations during the war. Early in the war while working for theRoyal Aircraft Establishment(RAE) he set up a team known as the "Circus" which helped to reduce the number ofanti-aircraft artilleryrounds needed to shoot down an enemy aircraft from an average of over 20,000 at the start of theBattle of Britainto 4,000 in 1941.

ALiberatorin standard RAF green/dark earth/black night bomber finish as originally used by Coastal Command

In 1941, Blackett moved from the RAE to the Navy, after first working withRAF Coastal Command,in 1941 and then early in 1942 to theAdmiralty.Blackett's team at Coastal Command's Operational Research Section (CC-ORS) included two futureNobel prizewinners and many other people who went on to be pre-eminent in their fields.They undertook a number of crucial analyses that aided the war effort. Britain introduced theconvoysystem to reduce shipping losses, but while the principle of using warships to accompany merchant ships was generally accepted, it was unclear whether it was better for convoys to be small or large. Convoys travel at the speed of the slowest member, so small convoys can travel faster. It was also argued that small convoys would be harder for GermanU-boatsto detect. On the other hand, large convoys could deploy more warships against an attacker. Blackett's staff showed that the losses suffered by convoys depended largely on the number of escort vessels present, rather than the size of the convoy. Their conclusion was that a few large convoys are more defensible than many small ones.

While performing an analysis of the methods used byRAF Coastal Commandto hunt and destroy submarines, one of the analysts asked what colour the aircraft were. As most of them were from Bomber Command they were painted black for night-time operations. At the suggestion of CC-ORS a test was run to see if that was the best colour to camouflage the aircraft for daytime operations in the grey North Atlantic skies. Tests showed that aircraft painted white were on average not spotted until they were 20% closer than those painted black. This change indicated that 30% more submarines would be attacked and sunk for the same number of sightings.As a result of these findings Coastal Command changed their aircraft to using white undersurfaces.

Other work by the CC-ORS indicated that on average if the trigger depth of aerial-delivereddepth chargeswere changed from 100 to 25 feet, the kill ratios would go up. The reason was that if a U-boat saw an aircraft only shortly before it arrived over the target then at 100 feet the charges would do no damage (because the U-boat wouldn't have had time to descend as far as 100 feet), and if it saw the aircraft a long way from the target it had time to alter course under water so the chances of it being within the 20-foot kill zone of the charges was small. It was more efficient to attack those submarines close to the surface when the targets' locations were better known than to attempt their destruction at greater depths when their positions could only be guessed. Before the change of settings from 100 to 25 feet, 1% of submerged U-boats were sunk and 14% damaged. After the change, 7% were sunk and 11% damaged; if submarines were caught on the surface but had time to submerge just before being attacked, the numbers rose to 11% sunk and 15% damaged. Blackett observed "there can be few cases where such a great operational gain had been obtained by such a small and simple change of tactics".

Map ofKammhuber Line

Bomber Command's Operational Research Section (BC-ORS), analyzed a report of a survey carried out byRAF Bomber Command.For the survey, Bomber Command inspected all bombers returning from bombing raids over Germany over a particular period. All damage inflicted by Germanair defenseswas noted and the recommendation was given that armor be added in the most heavily damaged areas. Thisrecommendationwas not adopted because the fact that the aircraft were able to return with these areas damaged indicated the areas were not vital, and adding armor to non-vital areas where damage is acceptable reduces aircraft performance. Their suggestion to remove some of the crew so that an aircraft loss would result in fewer personnel losses, was also rejected by RAF command. Blackett's team made the logical recommendation that the armor be placed in the areas which were completely untouched by damage in the bombers who returned. They reasoned that the survey was biased, since it only included aircraft that returned to Britain. The areas untouched in returning aircraft were probably vital areas, which, if hit, would result in the loss of the aircraft.This story has been disputed,with a similar damage assessment study completed in the US by theStatistical Research GroupatColumbia University,the result of work done byAbraham Wald.

When Germany organized its air defences into theKammhuber Line,it was realized by the British that if the RAF bombers were to fly in abomber streamthey could overwhelm the night fighters who flew in individual cells directed to their targets by ground controllers. It was then a matter of calculating the statistical loss from collisions against the statistical loss from night fighters to calculate how close the bombers should fly to minimize RAF losses.

The "exchange rate" ratio of output to input was a characteristic feature of operational research. By comparing the number of flying hours put in by Allied aircraft to the number of U-boat sightings in a given area, it was possible to redistribute aircraft to more productive patrol areas. Comparison of exchange rates established "effectiveness ratios" useful in planning. The ratio of 60mineslaid per ship sunk was common to several campaigns: German mines in British ports, British mines on German routes, and United States mines in Japanese routes.

Operational research doubled the on-target bomb rate ofB-29sbombing Japan from theMarianas Islandsby increasing the training ratio from 4 to 10 percent of flying hours; revealed that wolf-packs of three United States submarines were the most effective number to enable all members of the pack to engage targets discovered on their individual patrol stations; revealed that glossy enamel paint was more effective camouflage for night fighters than conventional dull camouflage paint finish, and a smooth paint finish increased airspeed by reducing skin friction.

On land, the operational research sections of the Army Operational Research Group (AORG) of theMinistry of Supply(MoS) were landed inNormandy in 1944,and they followed British forces in the advance across Europe. They analyzed, among other topics, the effectiveness of artillery, aerial bombing and anti-tank shooting.

After World War II

In 1947, under the auspices of theBritish Association,a symposium was organized inDundee.In his opening address, Watson-Watt offered a definition of the aims of OR:

"To examine quantitatively whether the user organization is getting from the operation of its equipment the best attainable contribution to its overall objective."

With expanded techniques and growing awareness of the field at the close of the war, operational research was no longer limited to only operational, but was extended to encompass equipment procurement, training,logisticsand infrastructure. Operations research also grew in many areas other than the military once scientists learned to apply its principles to the civilian sector. The development of thesimplex algorithmforlinear programmingwas in 1947.

In the 1950s, the term Operations Research was used to describe heterogeneous mathematical methods such asgame theory,dynamic programming, linear programming, warehousing,spare parts theory,queue theory,simulation and production control, which were used primarily in civilian industry. Scientific societies and journals on the subject of operations research were founded in the 1950s, such as theOperation Research Society of America(ORSA) in 1952 and the Institute for Management Science (TIMS) in 1953.Philip Morse, the head of the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group of the Pentagon, became the first president of ORSA and attracted the companies of themilitary-industrial complexto ORSA, which soon had more than 500 members. In the 1960s, ORSA reached 8000 members.Consulting companies also founded OR groups. In 1953, Abraham Charnes and William Cooper published the first textbook on Linear Programming.

In the 1950s and 1960s, chairs of operations research were established in the U.S. and United Kingdom (from 1964 in Lancaster) in the management faculties of universities. Further influences from the U.S. on the development of operations research in Western Europe can be traced here. The authoritativeOR textbooks from the U.S. were published in Germany in German language and in France in French (but not in Italian), such as the book by George Dantzig "Linear Programming" (1963) and the book byC. West Churchmanet al. "Introduction to Operations Research" (1957). The latter was also published in Spanish in 1973, opening at the same time Latin American readers to Operations Research.NATOgave important impulses for the spread of Operations Research in Western Europe; NATO headquarters (SHAPE) organised four conferences on OR in the 1950s – the one in 1956 with 120 participants – bringing OR to mainland Europe. Within NATO, OR was also known as "Scientific Advisory" (SA) and was grouped together in the Advisory Group of Aeronautical Research and Development (AGARD). SHAPE and AGARD organized an OR conference in April 1957 in Paris. WhenFrance withdrew from the NATO military command structure,the transfer of NATO headquarters from France to Belgium led to the institutionalization of OR in Belgium, where Jacques Drèze founded CORE, the Center for Operations Research and Econometrics at theCatholic University of Leuvenin 1966.

With the development of computers over the next three decades, Operations Research can now solve problems with hundreds of thousands of variables and constraints. Moreover, the large volumes of data required for such problems can be stored and manipulated very efficiently. "Much of operations research (modernly known as 'analytics') relies upon stochastic variables and a therefore access to truly random numbers. Fortunately, the cybernetics field also required the same level of randomness. The development of increasingly better random number generators has been a boon to both disciplines. Modern applications of operations research includes city planning, football strategies, emergency planning, optimizing all facets of industry and economy, and undoubtedly with the likelihood of the inclusion of terrorist attack planning and definitely counterterrorist attack planning. More recently, the research approach of operations research, which dates back to the 1950s, has been criticized for being collections of mathematical models but lacking an empirical basis of data collection for applications. How to collect data is not presented in the textbooks. Because of the lack of data, there are also no computer applications in the textbooks.

Problems addressed

• Critical path analysisorproject planning:identifying those processes in a multiple-dependency project which affect the overall duration of the project
• Floorplanning:designing the layout of equipment in a factory or components on acomputer chipto reducemanufacturingtime (therefore reducing cost)
• Network optimization:for instance, setup of telecommunications or power system networks to maintain quality of service during outages
• Resource allocationproblems
• Facility location
• Assignment Problems:
  • Assignment problem
  • Generalized assignment problem
  • Quadratic assignment problem
  • Weapon target assignment problem
• Bayesian search theory:looking for a target
• Optimal search
• Routing,such as determining the routes of buses so that as few buses are needed as possible
• Supply chain management:managing the flow of raw materials and products based on uncertain demand for the finished products
• Project production activities: managing the flow of work activities in a capital project in response to system variability through operations research tools for variability reduction and buffer allocation using a combination of allocation of capacity, inventory and time
• Efficient messaging and customer response tactics
• Automation:automating or integrating robotic systems in human-driven operations processes
• Globalization:globalizing operations processes in order to take advantage of cheaper materials, labor, land or other productivity inputs
• Transportation: managingfreighttransportation and delivery systems (Examples:LTL shipping,intermodal freight transport,travelling salesman problem,driver scheduling problem)
• Scheduling:
  • Personnel staffing
  • Manufacturing steps
  • Project tasks
  • Network data traffic: these are known asqueueing modelsor queueing systems.
  • Sports events and their television coverage
• Blending of raw materials in oil refineries
• Determining optimal prices, in many retail and B2B settings, within the disciplines ofpricing science
• Cutting stock problem:Cutting small items out of bigger ones.
• Finding the optimal parameter (weights) setting of an algorithm that generates the realisation of afigured bassinBaroquecompositions (classical music) by using weighted local cost and transition cost rules

Operational research is also used extensively in government whereevidence-based policyis used.

Management science

Main article:Management science

The field of management science (MS) is known as using operations research models in business.Stafford Beercharacterized this in 1967.Like operational research itself, management science is an interdisciplinary branch of applied mathematics devoted to optimal decision planning, with strong links with economics, business, engineering, and othersciences.It uses variousscientificresearch-based principles,strategies,andanalytical methodsincludingmathematical modeling,statistics andnumerical algorithmsto improve an organization's ability to enact rational and meaningful management decisions by arriving at optimal or near-optimal solutions to sometimes complex decision problems. Management scientists help businesses to achieve their goals using the scientific methods of operational research.

The management scientist's mandate is to use rational, systematic, science-based techniques to inform and improve decisions of all kinds. Of course, the techniques of management science are not restricted to business applications but may be applied to military, medical, public administration, charitable groups, political groups or community groups.

Management science is concerned with developing and applyingmodelsandconceptsthat may prove useful in helping to illuminate management issues and solve managerial problems, as well as designing and developing new and better models of organizational excellence.

Related fields

Some of the fields that have considerable overlap with Operations Research and Management Science include:

• Artificial Intelligence
• Business analytics
• Computer science
• Data mining/Data science/Big data
• Decision analysis
• Decision intelligence
• Engineering
• Financial engineering
• Forecasting
• Game theory
• Geography/Geographic information science
• Graph theory
• Industrial engineering
• Inventory control
• Logistics
• Mathematical modeling
• Mathematical optimization
• Probabilityandstatistics
• Project management
• Policy analysis
• Queueing theory
• Simulation
• Social network/Transportation forecastingmodels
• Stochastic processes
• Supply chain management
• Systems engineering

Applications

Applications are abundant such as in airlines, manufacturing companies,service organizations,military branches, and government. The range of problems and issues to which it has contributed insights and solutions is vast. It includes:

• Scheduling (of airlines, trains, buses etc.)
• Assignment (assigning crew to flights, trains or buses; employees to projects; commitment and dispatch of power generation facilities)
• Facility location (deciding most appropriate location for new facilities such as warehouses; factories or fire station)
• Hydraulics & Piping Engineering (managing flow of water from reservoirs)
• Health Services (information and supply chain management)
• Game Theory (identifying, understanding; developing strategies adopted by companies)
• Urban Design
• Computer Network Engineering (packet routing; timing; analysis)
• Telecom & Data Communication Engineering (packet routing; timing; analysis)

Management is also concerned with so-called soft-operational analysis which concerns methods forstrategic planning,strategicdecision support,problem structuring methods. In dealing with these sorts of challenges, mathematicalmodeling and simulationmay not be appropriate or may not suffice. Therefore, during the past 30 years,a number of non-quantified modeling methods have been developed. These include:

• stakeholder based approaches includingmetagame analysisanddrama theory
• morphological analysisand various forms ofinfluence diagrams
• cognitive mapping
• strategic choice
• robustness analysis

Societies and journals

Societies

TheInternational Federation of Operational Research Societies(IFORS)is anumbrella organizationfor operational research societies worldwide, representing approximately 50 national societies including those in the US,UK,France,Germany,Italy,Canada,Australia,New Zealand,Philippines,India,Japan and South Africa.For the institutionalization of Operations Research, the foundation of IFORS in 1960 was of decisive importance, which stimulated the foundation of national OR societies in Austria, Switzerland and Germany. IFORS held important international conferences every three years since 1957.The constituent members of IFORS form regional groups, such as that in Europe, theAssociation of European Operational Research Societies(EURO).Other important operational research organizations areSimulation Interoperability Standards Organization(SISO)andInterservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference(I/ITSEC)

In 2004, the US-based organization INFORMS began an initiative to market the OR profession better, including a website entitledThe Science of Betterwhich provides an introduction to OR and examples of successful applications of OR to industrial problems. This initiative has been adopted by theOperational Research Societyin the UK, including a website entitledLearn About OR.

Journals of INFORMS

TheInstitute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences(INFORMS) publishes thirteen scholarly journals about operations research, including the top two journals in their class, according to 2005Journal Citation Reports.They are:

• Decision Analysis
• Information Systems Research
• INFORMS Journal on Computing
• INFORMS Transactions on Education(an open access journal)
• Interfaces
• Management Science
• Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
• Marketing Science
• Mathematics of Operations Research
• Operations Research
• Organization Science
• Service Science
• Transportation Science

Other journals

These are listed in Alpha betical order of their titles.

• 4OR-A Quarterly Journal of Operations Research:jointly published the Belgian, French and Italian Operations Research Societies (Springer);
• Decision Sciencespublished byWiley-Blackwellon behalf of theDecision Sciences Institute
• European Journal of Operational Research(EJOR):Founded in 1975 and is presentlyby far the largest operational research journal in the world, with its around 9,000 pages of published papers per year. In 2004, its total number of citations was the second largest amongst Operational Research and Management Science journals;
• INFOR Journal:published and sponsored by the Canadian Operational Research Society;
• Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation (JDMS): Applications, Methodology, Technology:a quarterly journal devoted to advancing the science of modeling and simulation as it relates to the military and defense.
• Journal of the Operational Research Society(JORS):an official journal ofThe OR Society;this is the oldest continuously published journal of OR in the world, published byTaylor & Francis;
• Military Operations Research (MOR):published by theMilitary Operations Research Society;
• Omega - The International Journal of Management Science;
• Operations Research Letters;
• Opsearch:official journal of the Operational Research Society of India;
• OR Insight:a quarterly journal of The OR Society published by Palgrave;
• Pesquisa Operacional,the official journal of the Brazilian Operations Research Society
• Production and Operations Management,the official journal of the Production and Operations Management Society
• TOP:the official journal of theSpanish Statistics and Operations Research Society.

See also

Operations research topics

• Black box analysis
• Dynamic programming
• Inventory theory
• Optimal maintenance
• Real options valuation
• Artificial intelligence

Operations researchers

• Operations researchers(category)
• George Dantzig
• Leonid Kantorovich
• Tjalling Koopmans
• Russell L. Ackoff
• Stafford Beer
• Alfred Blumstein
• C. West Churchman

• William W. Cooper
• Robert Dorfman
• Richard M. Karp
• Ramayya Krishnan
• Frederick W. Lanchester
• Thomas L. Magnanti
• Alvin E. Roth
• Peter Whittle

Related fields

• Behavioral operations research
• Big data
• Business engineering
• Business process management
• Database normalization
• Engineering management
• Geographic information systems
• Industrial engineering
• Industrial organization
• Managerial economics

• Military simulation
• Operational level of war
• Power system simulation
• Project production management
• Reliability engineering
• Scientific management
• Search-based software engineering
• Simulation modeling
• Strategic management
• Supply chain engineering
• System safety
• Wargaming

Further reading

Classic books and articles

• R. E. Bellman,Dynamic Programming,Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1957
• Abraham Charnes, William W. Cooper,Management Models and Industrial Applications of Linear Programming,Volumes I and II, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1961
• Abraham Charnes, William W. Cooper, A. Henderson,An Introduction to Linear Programming,New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1953
• C. West Churchman, Russell L. Ackoff & E. L. Arnoff,Introduction to Operations Research,New York: J. Wiley and Sons, 1957
• George B. Dantzig,Linear Programming and Extensions,Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1963
• Lester K. Ford, Jr., D. Ray Fulkerson,Flows in Networks,Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1962
• Jay W. Forrester,Industrial Dynamics,Cambridge, MIT Press, 1961
• L. V. Kantorovich, "Mathematical Methods of Organizing and Planning Production"Management Science,4, 1960, 266–422
• Ralph Keeney, Howard Raiffa,Decisions with Multiple Objectives: Preferences and Value Tradeoffs,New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1976
• H. W. Kuhn, "The Hungarian Method for the Assignment Problem,"Naval Research Logistics Quarterly,1–2, 1955, 83–97
• H. W. Kuhn, A. W. Tucker, "Nonlinear Programming," pp. 481–492 inProceedings of the Second Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability
• B. O. Koopman,Search and Screening: General Principles and Historical Applications,New York, Pergamon Press, 1980
• Tjalling C. Koopmans, editor,Activity Analysis of Production and Allocation,New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1951
• Charles C. Holt, Franco Modigliani, John F. Muth, Herbert A. Simon,Planning Production, Inventories, and Work Force,Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1960
• Philip M. Morse, George E. Kimball,Methods of Operations Research,New York, MIT Press and John Wiley & Sons, 1951
• Robert O. Schlaifer, Howard Raiffa,Applied Statistical Decision Theory,Cambridge, Division of Research, Harvard Business School, 1961

Classic textbooks

• Taha, Hamdy A., "Operations Research: An Introduction", Pearson, 10th Edition, 2016
• Frederick S. Hillier & Gerald J. Lieberman,Introduction to Operations Research,McGraw-Hill: Boston MA; 10th Edition, 2014
• Robert J. Thierauf & Richard A. Grosse, "Decision Making Through Operations Research", John Wiley & Sons, INC, 1970
• Harvey M. Wagner,Principles of Operations Research,Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, 1969
• Wentzel (Ventsel), E. S.Introduction to Operations Research,Moscow: Soviet Radio Publishing House, 1964.

History

• Saul I. Gass, Arjang A. Assad,An Annotated Timeline of Operations Research: An Informal History.New York, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2005.
• Saul I. Gass (Editor), Arjang A. Assad (Editor),Profiles in Operations Research: Pioneers and Innovators.Springer, 2011
• Maurice W. Kirby (Operational Research Society (Great Britain)). Operational Research in War and Peace: The British Experience from the 1930s to 1970, Imperial College Press, 2003.ISBN1-86094-366-7,ISBN978-1-86094-366-9
• J. K. Lenstra, A. H. G. Rinnooy Kan, A. Schrijver (editors)History of Mathematical Programming: A Collection of Personal Reminiscences,North-Holland, 1991
• Charles W. McArthur,Operations Analysis in the U.S. Army Eighth Air Force in World War II,History of Mathematics, Vol. 4, Providence, American Mathematical Society, 1990
• C. H. Waddington,O. R. in World War 2: Operational Research Against the U-boat,London, Elek Science, 1973.
• Richard Vahrenkamp:Mathematical Management – Operations Research in the United States and Western Europe, 1945 – 1990,in: Management Revue – Socio-Economic Studies, vol. 34 (2023), issue 1, pp. 69–91.

External links

• What is Operations Research?
• International Federation of Operational Research Societies
• The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
• Occupational Outlook Handbook, U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics