Note for Operations Research - OR By Amity Kumar

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OPERATIONS RESEARCH Part –A, Unit 1: Linear Programming 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 TERMINOLOGY The British/Europeans refer to "operational research", the Americans to "operations research" - but both are often shortened to just "OR" (which is the term we will use). Another term which is used for this field is "management science" ("MS"). The Americans sometimes combine the terms OR and MS together and say "OR/MS" or "ORMS". Yet other terms sometimes used are "industrial engineering"("IE"), "decision science" ("DS"), and “problem solving”. In recent years there has been a move towards a standardization upon a single term for the field, namely the term "OR". 1.2 THE METHODOLOGY OF OR When OR is used to solve a problem of an organization, the following seven step procedure should be followed: Step 1. Formulate the Problem: OR analyst first defines the organization's problem. Defining the problem includes specifying the organization's objectives and the parts of the organization (or system) that must be studied before the problem can be solved. Step 2. Observe the System: Next, the analyst collects data to estimate the values of parameters that affect the organization's problem. These estimates are used to develop (in Step 3) and evaluate (in Step 4) a mathematical model of the organization's problem. Step 3. Formulate a Mathematical Model of the Problem: The analyst, then, develops a mathematical model (in other words an idealized representation) of the problem. In this class, we describe many mathematical techniques that can be used to model systems. Step 4. Verify the Model and Use the Model for Prediction: The analyst now tries to determine if the mathematical model developed in Step 3 is an accurate representation of reality. To determine how well the model fits reality, one determines how valid the model is for the current situation. Step 5. Select a Suitable Alternative: Given a model and a set of alternatives, the analyst chooses the alternative (if there is one) that best meets the organization's objectives. Sometimes the set of alternatives is subject to certain restrictions and constraints. In many situations, the best alternative may be impossible or too costly to determine. Step 6. Present the Results and Conclusions of the Study: In this step, the analyst presents the model and the recommendations from Step 5 to the decision making individual or group. In some situations, one might present several alternatives and let the 1

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organization choose the decision maker(s) choose the one that best meets her/his/their needs. After presenting the results of the OR study to the decision maker(s), the analyst may find that s/he does not (or they do not) approve of the recommendations. This may result from incorrect definition of the problem on hand or from failure to involve decision maker(s) from the start of the project. In this case, the analyst should return to Step 1, 2, or 3. Step 7. Implement and Evaluate Recommendation: If the decision maker(s) has accepted the study, the analyst aids in implementing the recommendations. The system must be constantly monitored (and updated dynamically as the environment changes) to ensure that the recommendations are enabling decision maker(s) to meet her/his/their objectives. 1.3 HISTORY OF OR OR is a relatively new discipline. Whereas 70 years ago it would have been possible to study mathematics, physics or engineering (for example) at university it would not have been possible to study OR, indeed the term OR did not exist then. It was only really in the late 1930's that operational research began in a systematic fashion, and it started in the UK. Early in 1936 the British Air Ministry established Bawdsey Research Station, on the east coast, near Felixstowe, Suffolk, as the centre where all pre-war radar experiments for both the Air Force and the Army would be carried out. Experimental radar equipment was brought up to a high state of reliability and ranges of over 100 miles on aircraft were obtained. It was also in 1936 that Royal Air Force (RAF) Fighter Command, charged specifically with the air defense of Britain, was first created. It lacked however any effective fighter aircraft - no Hurricanes or Spitfires had come into service - and no radar data was yet fed into its very elementary warning and control system. It had become clear that radar would create a whole new series of problems in fighter direction and control so in late 1936 some experiments started at Biggin Hill in Kent into the effective use of such data. This early work, attempting to integrate radar data with ground based observer data for fighter interception, was the start of OR. The first of three major pre-war air-defense exercises was carried out in the summer of 1937. The experimental radar station at Bawdsey Research Station was brought into operation and the information derived from it was fed into the general air-defense warning and control system. From the early warning point of view this exercise was encouraging, but the tracking information obtained from radar, after filtering and transmission through the control and display network, was not very satisfactory. In July 1938 a second major air-defense exercise was carried out. Four additional radar stations had been installed along the coast and it was hoped that Britain now had an aircraft location and control system greatly improved both in coverage and effectiveness. Not so! The exercise revealed, rather, that a new and serious problem had arisen. This was the need to coordinate and correlate the additional, and often conflicting, information 2

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received from the additional radar stations. With the out-break of war apparently imminent, it was obvious that something new - drastic if necessary - had to be attempted. Some new approach was needed. Accordingly, on the termination of the exercise, the Superintendent of Bawdsey Research Station, A.P. Rowe, announced that although the exercise had again demonstrated the technical feasibility of the radar system for detecting aircraft, its operational achievements still fell far short of requirements. He therefore proposed that a crash program of research into the operational - as opposed to the technical - aspects of the system should begin immediately. The term "operational research" [RESEARCH into (military) OPERATIONS] was coined as a suitable description of this new branch of applied science. The first team was selected from amongst the scientists of the radar research group the same day. In the summer of 1939 Britain held what was to be its last pre-war air defense exercise. It involved some 33,000 men, 1,300 aircraft, 110 antiaircraft guns, 700 searchlights, and 100 barrage balloons. This exercise showed a great improvement in the operation of the air defense warning and control system. The contribution made by the OR teams was so apparent that the Air Officer Commander-in-Chief RAF Fighter Command (Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding) requested that, on the outbreak of war, they should be attached to his headquarters at Stanmore. On May 15th 1940, with German forces advancing rapidly in France, Stanmore Research Section was asked to analyze a French request for ten additional fighter squadrons (12 aircraft a squadron) when losses were running at some three squadrons every two days. They prepared graphs for Winston Churchill (the British Prime Minister of the time), based upon a study of current daily losses and replacement rates, indicating how rapidly such a move would deplete fighter strength. No aircraft were sent and most of those currently in France were recalled. This is held by some to be the most strategic contribution to the course of the war made by OR (as the aircraft and pilots saved were consequently available for the successful air defense of Britain, the Battle of Britain). In 1941 an Operational Research Section (ORS) was established in Coastal Command which was to carry out some of the most well-known OR work in World War II. Although scientists had (plainly) been involved in the hardware side of warfare (designing better planes, bombs, tanks, etc) scientific analysis of the operational use of military resources had never taken place in a systematic fashion before the Second World War. Military personnel, often by no means stupid, were simply not trained to undertake such analysis. These early OR workers came from many different disciplines, one group consisted of a physicist, two physiologists, two mathematical physicists and a surveyor. What such people brought to their work were "scientifically trained" minds, used to querying assumptions, logic, exploring hypotheses, devising experiments, collecting data, analyzing numbers, etc. Many too were of high intellectual caliber (at least four wartime OR personnel were later to win Nobel prizes when they returned to their peacetime disciplines). 3

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By the end of the war OR was well established in the armed services both in the UK and in the USA. OR started just before World War II in Britain with the establishment of teams of scientists to study the strategic and tactical problems involved in military operations. The objective was to find the most effective utilization of limited military resources by the use of quantitative techniques. Following the end of the war OR spread, although it spread in different ways in the UK and USA. You should be clear that the growth of OR since it began (and especially in the last 30 years) is, to a large extent, the result of the increasing power and widespread availability of computers. Most (though not all) OR involves carrying out a large number of numeric calculations. Without computers this would simply not be possible 1.4WHAT IS OPERATIONS RESEARCH? Operations • The activities carried out in an organization. Research • The process of observation and testing characterized by the scientific method. Situation, problem statement, model construction, validation, experimentation, candidate solutions. Model • An abstract representation of reality. Mathematical, physical, narrative, set of rules in computer program. Systems Approach • Include broad implications of decisions for the organization at each stage in analysis. Both quantitative and qualitative factors are considered. Optimal Solution • A solution to the model that optimizes (maximizes or minimizes) some measure of merit over all feasible solutions. Team • A group of individuals bringing various skills and viewpoints to a problem. Operations Research Techniques • A collection of general mathematical models, analytical procedures, and algorithms. 4