OPERATIONAL RESEARCH SMQ6014

Assignment 1
Lecturer: Dr Nurul Huda binti Mohamed

GROUP MEMBER
Mohamad Nazrin Bin Ishak Mohd Azrif Bin Mohamad Ali Muhammad Yusri Bin Muhammad Muhammad Abdah Bin Mohtar @ Mukhtar

TOPIC
The history and the development of Operational Research (OR) and its applications in real life situations.

Introduction of OR
1.

Operational research (OR) encompasses a wide range of problem-solving techniques and methods applied in the pursuit of improved decision-making and efficiency, such assimulation, mathematical optimization, queueing theory and other stochasticprocess models. Operations research (OR) is an analytical method of problem-solving and decision-making that is useful in the management of organizations.

2.

3.

Dominique A. Heger, Fortuitous Technology, (dom@fortuitous.com), Austin, TX, 2006 - Describes the discipline that is focused on the application of information technology for informed decisionmaking.

Objectives of OR
Decision making and improve its quality.

Identify the optimum solution.

Integrating the system. Improve the objectivity of analysis.

Minimize the cost and maximize the profit.

Improve the productivity. Success in competitions and market

leadership.

History of OR
1.

Operational research (OR) originated in the efforts of military planners during World War II. 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 utilisation of limited military resources by the use of quantitative techniques.

2.

3.

4.

Also known as operations research or operations

Development of OR
1.

The techniques began to be applied more widely to problems in business, industry and society. Since that time, operational research has expanded into a field widely used in industries ranging from petrochemicals to airlines, finance, logistics, and government.

2.

3.

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.

Application of OR
1.
o

Manufacturers
Manufacturers used operations research to make products more efficiently, schedule equipment maintenance, and control inventory and distribution. And success in these areas led to expansion into strategic and financial planning, and into such diverse areas as criminal justice, education, meteorology, and communications.

Cont
o

A number of major social and economic trends are increasing the need for operations researchers. In todays global marketplace, enterprizes must compete more effectively for their share of profits than ever before. And public and non-profit agencies must compete for everscarcer funding dollars.

Cont
o

This means that all of us must become more productive. Volume must be increased.

Consumers demands for better products and services must be met. Manufacturing and distribution must be faster.
Products and people must be available just in time.

o o

2. Employment in operations research.

o

Many large firms have groups of OR analysts (commonly 4 to 12 people). These are located in the steel, mining, oil, gas, chemicals, paper and engineering industries; airlines, railways, banking and insurance. Within the public sector, OR analysts are also employed in health, education and electricity supply.

Not all of these people have the formal title of Operations Research Analyst and may be located in departments such as Industrial Engineering, Management Services or Corporate Research.

Airline Industry

Flow chart of the OR Process

PROBLEM : I. PLANNING Delta flies over 2500 domestic flight legs each day and uses about 450 aircraft from 10 different fleets, and the objective II. IMPLEMENTATION was to assign aircraft to flight legs in such a way that revenues from seats are maximized.

III. FOLLOW-THROUGH

Conclusion
OR needs to be integrated as an essential part of

monitoring and evaluation (M&E) efforts.

Thus, the concept of MORE could become a

new paradigm enhancing the practice of integrating monitoring, research and evaluation dimensions as one common component into program management systems.

COLDSTART: FLEET ASSIGNMENT AT DELTA AIRLINES

PROBLEM: Delta flies over 2500 domestic flight legs each day and uses about 450 aircraft from 10 different fleets, and the objective was to assign aircraft to flight legs in such a way that revenues from seats are maximized OBJECTIVE: To ensure that an aircraft of the "correct" size be available when required and where required. Unfortunately, ensuring that this can happen is tremendously complicated since there are a number

EXAMPLE OF MODEL APPLIED

References
1.

2.
3. 4. 5. 6.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/operation s-research-OR http://fortuitous.com/docs/primers/OR-intro.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light http://www.pitt.edu/~jrclass/or/orintro.html#Delta http://www.asor.ms.unimelb.edu.au/career/right. html