About Operations Research

Operations research is the application of advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions. Since its inception nearly 60 years ago, O.R. has contributed billions of dollars in benefits and savings to corporations, government, and the nonprofit sector.

See the types of challenges O.R. can address for you along with success stories.

Review the first steps to put O.R. to work for you.

Because the public is largely unacquainted with the sophisticated techniques used by operations researchers, INFORMS established a public relations department to educate those outside the profession. In In 2004, INFORMS introduced the "O.R.: The Science of Better" campaign to improve the visibility, identity, and image to key constituencies outside the discipline. The goal of the campaign is to make transparent and understandable the value of the discipline, thereby generating meaningful demand for what operations research can do.

Learn more about this uniquely powerful approach to decision making and find experts to help you at: www.scienceofbetter.org.

Members: Add yourself to the O.R. Professional Database -- the one-stop shop for potential clients seeking O.R. expertise at: http://www.orchampions.org/.

 About Management Science

Management science (MS), is an interdisciplinary branch of applied mathematics, engineering and sciences that uses various scientific research-based principles, strategies, and analytical methods including mathematical modeling, statistics and algorithms to improve an organization's ability to enact rational and meaningful management decisions. The discipline is typically concerned with maximizing profit, assembly line performance, crop yield, bandwidth, etc or minimizing expenses, loss, risk, etc.

Overview

Management science is concerned with a number of different areas of study including developing and applying models and concepts that may prove useful in helping to illuminate management issues and solve problems. Management science research can be done on three levels:

• A fundamental level that lies in three mathematical disciplines: probability, optimization, and dynamic systems theory,
• A modeling level that builds models, gathers data, and analyzes them mathematically, and
• An application level, just as any other engineering discipline that has strong aspirations to make a practical impact in the real world.

Theory

Some of the fields that are included in Management Science are:

as well as many others.

Applications

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

• scheduling airlines, both planes and crew,
• deciding the appropriate place to place new facilities such as a warehouse or factory,
• managing the flow of water from reservoirs,
• identifying possible future development paths for parts of the telecommunications industry,
• establishing the information needs and appropriate systems to supply them within the health service, and
• identifying and understanding the strategies adopted by companies for their information systems.