Operations Research In Engineering Management
فرمت : WORD تعداد صفحه :11
A Brief History of Operations Research
Operations Research has had undertakings as early as the third century when Hieron, King of Syracuse, asked Archimedes to devise means for breaking the Roman naval siege of his city but more clear examples of OR were evident during WWI when political figures made attempts to analyze military operations mathematically. World War II marked the beginning of Operations Research as an organized research. Britain was the first to utilize OR because they already had an OR organization in existence. OR finally crossed the Atlantic to the America’s a few months later as both the Army Air Forces and the Navy began work to analyze different war time situations. After the war, OR proved to be very successful that many military operations were faced with considerations on how to continue their field of study and groups were formed within the military structure to continue research. The economic situation that the war had caused began conversion of industries from wartime production to production of goods for the private consumer. The transition from war to peace created a highly competitive economy. Businesses needed to be efficient and profitable. This caused business to analyze their business operations and thus OR found another home.
As discussed above, OR began in the military and then emerged in all aspects of government. It then spread to the banking and financial districts, airlines, and car manufactures. Now it is present in every industry. Operations Research involves many facets of discipline and tends to consider new courses of action to take that make changes to an organization over long periods of time. As one knows, change doesn’t happen over-night.
