President's Desk
OR: Past, Present and Future
By Mike Trick
INFORMS President
trick@cmu.edu
While our field is just over 50 years old, we in operations research can point to a long string of successes. At the beginning of OR during World War II, there were no people trained in operations research, of course. Physicists, engineers and mathematicians attacked the pressing issues of military operations using the tools with which they were trained along with their own creative, practical insights. It is no hyperbole to say that their work saved hundreds of thousands of lives and brought the war to a successful conclusion months or years earlier than it might otherwise have ended.After the war, these pioneers brought their newly found knowledge to civilian arenas, and quickly realized that the field they were creating was relevant to almost every sector of economic activity. In 1952, when the founding members met in May, much of the work presented already had a modern feel. When the papers from that meeting were published in November of 1952 (referees must have worked quickly back then!), concepts such as marginal value, stochastic optimization and the use of data were already evident. The first appearance of a double integral in the flagship journal undoubtedly caused muttering about overly mathematical approaches to operations research.
A speaker from the grocery industry said that "this large industry has so improved its efficiency that it is now working on a very small margin of profit — of the order of 1 or 2 percent net," a value that still holds true 50 years later. The summary of the inventory issues of the U.S. Time Corporation in 1952 sums up many operations management courses today. You can read all this on the CD included in this issue of OR/MS Today.
What is amazing is that, by modern standards, our founders had so few tools to work with in solving problems. Linear programming was in its infancy, and it would take 10 more years before George Dantzig's "Linear Programming and Extensions" would appear. In 1952, terms like "Traveling Salesman Problem," "Cutting Stock Problem" and "Quadratic Programming" would have been unfamiliar to the participants. Computers were the stuff of science fiction. In 1952, those who wanted to solve problems would work on all of the phases of operations research from developing algorithms, to modeling real problems, to implementing solutions.
As time went by and the field developed, people began to specialize more. Some people began to concentrate on developing tools, without worrying very much about their application. Others worked more on applying existing operations research tools to new domains and solving previously unsolvable problems. Over time, as the field continued to grow, people became more and more specialized. In some ways, we lost some of the early flavor of operations research. The "Jack of All Trades" who would see problems, develop methods and implement solutions became rarer. What we gained, however, was an every-increasing tool set and more integration of our approach in more fields.
Today, operations research is a vibrant, active field whose successes are so well-integrated in other areas that most people from outside the OR community don't even recognize the underlying operations research. For example, hundreds of thousands of people who don't know anything about operations research use optimization methods embedded in spreadsheets and other software. They do know that the "computer" is providing answers to problems, and that is enough for them.
It is important for those of us in the profession to think not just of our specializations, but of the field as a whole. Going through the articles in the first issue of Operations Research, and particularly the historical recollections given in the special 50th anniversary edition (also on the CD), has given me a new appreciation for the work of our founders, and a new respect for our half-century of success.
What of the future? Continued success of operations research requires continued education about who we are and what we do. Rather than adapt a broad perspective, let me tell you about two programs — one at the college level, the other aimed at younger students — that I think are important. At the college level, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB, www.aacsb.edu) is responsible for accrediting business schools, particularly those who give an MBA degree. Fifteen years ago, the accreditation standards were very rigid, and a course in operations research or management science was required of every MBA. Over time, the AACSB has tried to adopt a more flexible standard featuring fewer required courses and more variety. Overall, this is an admirable course, although I do not think there is one "right" way to educate managers.
One of the side effects of this flexibility, however, is a generation of managers who have not been taught how to analytically attack real managerial problems through the methods of OR/MS. If you teach in a business school, please talk to your dean about strengthening AACSB guidelines for analytical training.
Finally, one key to the future of our field is the enthusiasm of students entering the area, and one important aspect of this is to tell our story to them early. Ken Chelst and Tom Edwards, with the support of INFORMS, have put together a wonderful series of modules aimed at high school students. This fall at the INFORMS meeting in San Jose, Chelst and Edwards will instruct INFORMS members how to work with local high school teachers in order to introduce high school students to OR/MS (see the box below). Consider joining them.
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