An article titled “Model World: The Hidden Ingredient and Nature vs. Nurture” written by Dr. Saul I. Gass at the Decision and Information Technologies Department at University of Maryland was published on the current issue of Interfaces. In the article the author talked about what makes an individual the “OR type” of person by telling the stories of some remarkable individuals and their contributions in the the history of OR. I found the article to be a very interesting and inspiring read, mostly because I had always wondered whether I had an OR person in me before I decided to apply for the graduate programs in this field. I came to the conclusion that I was a good candidate for becoming a good OR person because I got pretty good grades in all my math courses at university and I have always had intense passion for OR. However, after reading this article, I realized that the way I analyzed myself was a bit too superficial. From this article I learned that your OR personality, if you have it, is reflected in almost every aspect of your life, be it your work or how you do your grocery shopping. You need to have the habit of thinking in a systematic fashion and be kind of a perfectionist who always pursues the “optimal” way to achieve something.
I always wondered what made the early OR analysts feel that they were the “OR type” of person who could make a living “doing” OR and, maybe, even make a contribution to the field. Speaking for myself, I found OR interesting; it was fun; there were jobs; and the pay was reasonable. However, the questions remain: What characteristics do OR people exhibit that make them candidates to pursue OR as a profession? Does someone take to OR because of nature (genes and DNA) or nurture (real-world experiences) or some mysterious mix?
The article mentioned Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) (See picture), who is known as the “father of scientific management”. His book “Shop Management”, published in 1903, was arguably the first scholarly work on management. In the book he argued that management should be studied in a scientific approach. The best ways to assign tasks and compensate employees should be done through the traditional scientific methods including observation and experimentation. In this regard, I guess that Taylor was one of the people who pioneered the idea of using traditional scientific methods to solve untraditional scientific problems, which could be used as another definition of OR. Based on the stories told by the author, it seems that Taylor really had some OR personality traits in his DNA.
On Jan 15, 2008, the annual trade show Macworld Conference & Expo was held in San Francisco, where the CEO of Apple Inc., Steve Jobs, introduced a new product called “Macbook Air“, which is an ultra-portable laptop. During his keynote speech, he mentioned that the retail packaging of Macbook Airs is 56% less in volume than Apple’s previously smallest packaging, which was for the Macbooks. This is really good news from an environmental point of view, since that it helps reduce the energy expenditure and pollution associated with the transportation of the packaged products as well as the disposing of the packaging materials (such as paper, plastic and cardboard).
I think Apple has once again set a very good example for all the consumer product manufacturers worldwide. As a consumer, I have always preferred products with packaging that is as minimal as possible while capable of ensuring the safety of the products during transportation. I was quite impressed by the packaging design of the new iPod Nano, which was quite minimal and consequently environmentally friendly. As a person who likes to look at things from an Operations Research (OR) perspective, I think that the minimization of the amount of packaging materials used in consumer products would make a great research topic for many OR researchers, although I believe that someone out there had already started studying it. In my opinion, some of the values this research will bring are:
The promotion of more efficient packaging designs as well as “greener” business philosophies that will help reduce environmental pollution, forest depletion, material waste and energy expenditure associated with over-packaging of consumer products.
The reduction of financial costs associated with the making of the packages.
Happier customers who won’t have to spent several minutes digging in the packages just to find the stuff they paid for.
Here is a great video of a professor discussing the importance of Operations Research.
Leon Lasdon, a professor in the Information, Risk, and Operations Management department at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin, discussed the importance of operations research (OR) as an element of corporate decision making Oct. 16 during his undergraduate Faculty Research Presentation Series lecture.
The webpage Dr. Lasdon showed to his students is here. It is about a case study on how a group of OR professionals developed an OR-based decision-support system that saved Continental Airlines a large amount of their operational costs by aiding the recovery from major disruptions, such as inclement weather, aircraft mechanical problems, and crew unavailability, which would cause flight delays and cancellations. The major interest in this research is to study how to minimize the effects of such disruptions on the scheduling of the airline crews on a global basis. The crews’ ability to service their remaining scheduled flights would be reduced by the disruptions. The system, named CrewSolver, can aid the airline companies to rapidly reassign crews to cover open flights and to return them to their original schedules in the case of an unexpected event.
One of the questions that most Operations Research (OR) professionals are afraid of being asked is probably “What is OR?”. It is difficult, even for a seasoned OR professional, to describe the field to a person with little or no relevant background. One of the main causes of this problem is that the term “Operations Research” is not as easily understandable as terms such as “Mechanical Engineering”, so people won’t be able to quickly construct a mental image of an OR person working with LINGO after hearing the term “OR”. The term “Management Sciences” can be a bit more easily visualized by people but it is also a bit too broad to define the area that is covered by ORMS, in my opinion. If I were to rename the field, I would probably use the name “Decision Sciences”, but even this term can be blurry as well and will cause some other types of confusions.
Therefore, I believe that the reason why it is difficult to describe OR to the general public lies in its nature. The nature of OR is broad and dynamic. The applications of OR can be found in almost any type of “operations” that are carried out in almost any type of systems, be it physical systems such as manufacturing plants or organizational systems such as express package delivery companies. Unlike Mechanical Engineering, which can only be applied to systems that obey the rules of physics, OR is broadly applicable. This is because OR deals with the hidden mathematical principles of human society and how we can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of what we do.
Hello, all. This is the first article on The Operations Research / Management Sciences Blog (The ORMS Blog). My name is Suri Like. I am a recent university graduate who is passionate about the world of Operations Research / Management Sciences (ORMS). In fact currently I am applying for graduate programs in related areas. Since the terms Operations Research and Management Sciences are interchangeable under most circumstances, I will simply use the abbreviation “OR” in most of my writings.
In a recent article on OR/MS Today, the author interviewed the INFORMS President-Elect Cynthia Barnhart, who described two major challenges for OR educators and professionals today, which are essentially:
Getting more young people to learn about OR so that the OR community will have a continuously increasing supply of new minds.
Getting more people in governments and business to learn about the benefits that OR can bring to their organizations.
An article titled “Model World: The Hidden Ingredient and Nature vs. Nurture” written by Dr. Saul I. Gass at the Decision and Information Technologies Department at University of Maryland was published on the current issue of Interfaces. In the article the author talked about what makes an individual the “OR type” of person by telling the stories of some remarkable individuals and their contributions in the the history of OR. I found the article to be a very interesting and inspiring read, mostly because I had always wondered whether I had an OR person in me before I decided to apply for the graduate programs in this field. I came to the conclusion that I was a good candidate for becoming a good OR person because I got pretty good grades in all my math courses at university and I have always had intense passion for OR. However, after reading this article, I realized that the way I analyzed myself was a bit too superficial. From this article I learned that your OR personality, if you have it, is reflected in almost every aspect of your life, be it your work or how you do your grocery shopping. You need to have the habit of thinking in a systematic fashion and be kind of a perfectionist who always pursues the “optimal” way to achieve something.