The Future of Operations Research

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  ORMSblog03/02/08 Report as spam
  1

  Great article!

  This is a great article. I agree that the future of OR is definitely going to be more dynamic and digital. We will see more collaborations between OR analysts and software engineers to develop software that provides real-time decision support and evolves with changing conditions.
  
  Please visit my personal website, "The Operations Research / Management Science Blog", http://www.ormsblog.com
  
  Thanks again for this great article!

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  patmurray12@...03/13/08 Report as spam
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  Enjoyed your articles - great job!

  I sent your link to my OR team

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  gsgomezintl04/06/08 Report as spam
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  RE: The Future of Operations Research

  WONDERFUL. BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE MORE ABOUT IT, PERHAPS A PROPOSITION? OTHERWISE IT'S ONLY A DESCRIPTIVE ARTICLE, A DIAGNOSIS.

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  jonathan134506/20/08 Report as spam
  4

  RE: The Future of Operations Research

  I agree that Schruben has a several very valid points but I think his focus on 'Simulation' is a bit one-sided. I just read a nice comment to this article on
  
  http://restart2.blogspot.com/2008/06/future-of-operations-research-revisited.html

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  jonathan134506/20/08 Report as spam
  5

  link has been truncated

  the link has been truncated. you can also just go to
  
  http://restart2.blogspot.com

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  bharathy@...06/26/08 Report as spam
  6

  RE: The Future of Operations Research

  This is a very timely article. Last time the same topic was attended to by Prof Russ Ackoff of the University of Pennsylvania in (1979?), the OR had already earned the ill-repute. Ackoff swiftly dealt with OR as saying that its future is past. The truth however is that we are living in a changing world. Firstly, 70s did not have the computational power or capacity to address some of the REAL and INTRACTABLE problems faced by humanity. While we do not have the answers yet, we have made significant progress.
  
  Today, at Ackoff Center at the University of Pennsylvania, we are involved in massive simulation modeling of social systems, incorporating human behavior. While theoretical OR is IMPORTANT, we should also be prepared to take leave from theoretical OR to address real problems - two such instances are incorporating human behavior and purposely deviating from the KISS principle to account for the real complexities in the social systems.
  
  Gnana K. Bharathy
  Ackoff Collaboratory for Advancement of Systems Approach (ACASA)
  University of Pennsylvania
  http://www.acasa.upenn.edu/assoc.htm | http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~bharathy/

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  gnewsome06/26/08 Report as spam
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  RE: The Future of Operations Research

  From a guy who works for a Predictive Modeling and Simulation small company (our resident "academic" PhDs have productionized the methodology into technology - it is not stuck in academia as the interview may imply), part of the "reputation" issue is tied to the fact thath there is significant disparity in output results / accuracy among such OR technologies.
  
  Ex. While a spreadsheet tool is a great place to start to "bound" the model, I would caution readers to be very careful on making significant decisions on over-simplified models and simulation. Fidelity of the model and simulation (which is directly proportional to the technologies ability to precisely reflect the complexity of your business) is key to success .....otherwise...as the interview highlights - simplified theory without an accurate bridge to detailed reality ....can have disastrous consequences....and the field will maintain its bad name....
  
  Reinforcing Prof. Schruben: Even with "Advanced" Predictive Modeling, it is an iterative PROCESS ....it is more than a technology .... it is a way of THINKING.
  
  Giancarlo Newsome, Clockwork Solutions Inc.

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  Pete Malpass06/27/08 Report as spam
  8

  RE: The Future of Operations Research

  Russell Ackoff (one of the foundersd of OR) wrote an article in the Journal, Operations Research, around 1984 that was titled, "OR is dead, bloated and stinking. Why don't we bury it?" You've just played apologist for the same sentiments. Ackoff's Systems Thinking work nicely summed up in Gharajedaghi's book (~2002) shows why OR fails (shorter funny version is Gene Woolsey's "On Modeling the Modelers" in 1984 Interfaces journal). I modeled networks of networks and systems for years but the people, political and economic environments (creating "messes" not "problems") were what kept us from success and sometimes helped us be successful. The author essentially notes the same (you can't always solve a technical problem using just technical mechanisms) without recognizing it. It is impressive to me that in 40+ years with great insights (Torbert & Rooke, "7 Transaformations..." HBR, 4/05; DICE criteria, HBR 10/05 "Hard side of ..." and the incredibly readable Ackoff, Forrester, and Argyris articles on systems thinking, that it isn't a part of the business curriculum. Perhaps Torbert's article explains that - only 11% or so of people can do second-third order learning that enables them to understand and adapt strategies using non-technical inputs. Senge's work actually muddied the waters for me, but going back to read Argyris (1974) (Nassim Taleb's "Black Swan" does a nice update of some of this thinking for financial types) and Ackoff (start with his "Fables" then switch to Gharajedaghi's "Systems Thinking") really helps.