OPERATIONS RESEARCH

Operations Research is relatively a new discipline, which originated in World War II, by Britain and U.S.A., during the 1939-1945, for scientific methods to the planning of military operations and became very popular throughout the world. India is one of the few first countries in the world who started using operations research. Operations Research is used successfully not only in military/army operations but also in business, government and industry. Now a day’s operations research is almost used in all the fields.

Operational Research is the attack of modern science on complex problems arising in the direction and management of large systems of men, machines, materials and money in industry, business, government and defence. Its distinctive approach is to develop a scientific model of the system, incorporating measurements of factors such as change and risk, with which to predict and compare the outcomes of alternative decisions, strategies or controls. The purpose is to help management determine its policy and actions scientifically.

               Stages of Development of Operations Research

The stages of development of O.R. are also known as phases and process of O.R, which has six important steps. These six steps are arranged in the following order:

 Step I: Formulation of Problem

 Step II: Construction of Mathematical Model

 Step III: Deriving the solution from the model

 Step IV: Testing the model and the solution derived from it

 Step V: Controlling the solution

 Step VI: Implement the solution

Step I:  Formulation of problem

First of all one must formulate the problem in the form of an appropriate model. To do so the following information will be required.

1.  Who has to take the decision?

2.  What are the objectives?

3.  What are the controlled variables?

4.  What are the uncontrolled variables?

5.  What are the restrictions?

Since wrong formulation cannot yield a right decision, one must be considerably careful while executing this phase.

 Step II: Construction of Mathematical Model 

This phase is concerned with the reformulation of the problem in an appropriate form which is convenient for analysis. The most suitable form for this purpose is to construct mathematical model representing the system under study. Model must include 3 important factors.

• Decision Variable.

•  Constraints or Restrictions.

•  Objective function.

Step III:  Deriving the solutions from the model 

After formulating the mathematical model for the problem under consideration, the next phase is to derive a solution from this model. Here in OR we are always

in search for an optimal solution. Optimal solution is the one which maximizes or minimizes the objective function.

Step IV: Provide a solution and test its reasonableness

This step is to get a solution with the help of model and input data. This solution is not implemented immediately, instead the solution is used to test the model and to find there’s any limitations. Suppose if the solution is not reasonable or the behaviour of the model is not proper, the model is updated and modified at this stage. The output of this stage is the solution(s) that supports the current organizational objectives.

Step V: Controlling the solution

The model requires immediate modification as soon as the controlled variables (one or more) changes significantly, otherwise the model goes out of control. As the conditions are constantly changing in the world and the solution may not remain valid for a long-time.

Step VI:  Implement the solution

At this step the solution obtained from the previous step is implemented. The implementation of the solution involves many behavioural issues. Therefore, before implementation the implementation authority has to resolve the issues. A properly implemented solution results in quality of work and gains the support from the management.