Initially, Rowe analysed the operating of the radar equipment and its communication networks, expanding later to include the operating personnel's behaviour. Rowe conceived the idea as a means to analyse and improve the working of the UK's early-warning radar system, code-named " Chain Home" (CH). Modern operational research originated at the Bawdsey Research Station in the UK in 1937 as the result of an initiative of the station's superintendent, A. Percy Bridgman brought operational research to bear on problems in physics in the 1920s and would later attempt to extend these to the social sciences. Operational research may have originated in the efforts of military planners during World War I (convoy theory and Lanchester's laws). Beginning in the 20th century, study of inventory management could be considered the origin of modern operations research with economic order quantity developed by Ford W. Charles Babbage's research into the cost of transportation and sorting of mail led to England's universal "Penny Post" in 1840, and to studies into the dynamical behaviour of railway vehicles in defence of the GWR's broad gauge. In the 17th century, mathematicians Blaise Pascal and Christiaan Huygens solved problems involving complex decisions ( problem of points) by using game-theoretic ideas and expected values others, such as Pierre de Fermat and Jacob Bernoulli, solved these types of problems using combinatorial reasoning instead. Since that time, operational research has expanded into a field widely used in industries ranging from petrochemicals to airlines, finance, logistics, and government, moving to a focus on the development of mathematical models that can be used to analyse and optimize complex systems, and has become an area of active academic and industrial research. In the decades after the two world wars, the tools of operations research were more widely applied to problems in business, industry, and society.
Įmploying techniques from other mathematical sciences, such as modeling, statistics, and optimization, operations research arrives at optimal or near-optimal solutions to complex decision-making problems. The term management science is sometimes used as a synonym. It is sometimes considered to be a subfield of mathematical sciences. Operations research ( British English: operational research), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of advanced analytical methods to improve decision-making. ( December 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) The specific issue is: US perspective completely neglected, George Dantzig gets a passing mention only You may improve this article, discuss the issue on the talk page, or create a new article, as appropriate. The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.