Operations Research 50th Anniversary

OR/MS Today - October 2002

Operations Research 50th Anniversary

Side Story:

Reminiscences & Reflections:
My first taste of OR
'I Had a Helluva Big Assignment'

By Andrew Vazsonyi

In 1953, I was working at Hughes Aircraft, assigned to write specifications for a digital computer. Prior to this I earned my living masquerading as an engineer because I could not get a job as a mathematician. Dean Wooldridge, the vice president of engineering, had a brainstorm: "Let's build computers to replace punch cards." He tried to find an engineer to make a feasibility study. Nobody wanted the job. Punch cards were despised by all, engineers and mathematicians. I did not feel comfortable under the cloak of an engineer so I volunteered.

The payroll people told me it would never work. How could a computer figure out how to pay a worker? The production control people, more than a hundred men, told me the same thing: "Impossible." So I went to work on the plant floor for a few weeks and discovered (in spite of the hellish noise and smoke) that the punch cards traveling with each assembly were ignored by the foremen. One foreman opened the envelope traveling with the assembly and showed it to me. It read, "must be completed by June 13."

"I just got it, and today is June 29," the foreman said.

Apparently the production control people worked in a dream world and had no impact on manufacturing. Products were always late and often disappeared altogether.

I reported to Wooldridge that replacing punch card machines wouldn't do.

"Then find out what the computer should do," he told me.

"I don't know a thing about how to run a shop or about management," I said.

"Find out," he said.

I had a helluva big assignment. I looked around and heard about ORSA, and thought that might be just what the doctor ordered, so I started attending ORSA meetings.

At an early meeting of ORSA I was giving a talk of my production control work. It was a plenary session and hundreds a people were in the audience. At the end someone stood up in the crowded room and asked if I was a full member of the association.

I knew what the heckler was getting at. When ORSA was founded, the leadership drove an elitist wedge into the association by creating two classes of members. Full members were only those theorists and mathematicians certified by the core group. On the other hand, associate members were riff-raff from the real world — guinea pigs from business who could try out the full members' theories. This undemocratic system reminded me of the good old days in semi-feudal Hungary — I thought it was nonsense and ignored the whole thing.

But on this day I decided to address the issue head-on. When the silence in the room became unbearable, I answered with as much humility as possible: "I am only a lowly associate member and do not belong to the inner sanctum."

I received a standing ovation.

Later, during the intermission, Phil Morse approached me.

"Why aren't you a full member?" he asked.

"I have never applied and never will. I don't believe in such hogwash," I said. "We must do something about that," Morse said.

Afterward, I got a letter promoting me to full membership in ORSA, one of the few who never applied for it. I thought about declining the status upgrade, but then again, I didn't want to waste my time on such political nonsense.

Andrew Vazsonyi, 85, professor emeritus at the McLaren School of Business, University of San Francisco, holds the distinction of being the only past president of TIMS who never served as president.

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