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The Challenge of Operations Research
O’Meara, Francis E.
7/4  (Summer 1965): 19-26

The article focuses on important challenges of operation research. This is something which will have an immediate and pervasive influence on modern society. This is not still another development in technology, but rather a change in the technique by which one manage technology, or in a more general sense, the development of a science for organizing and controlling large-scale human enterprise. Operations research is the kernel from which this science is growing. It is true of modern society that the physical sciences have outstripped the social sciences, and that unless one correct this imbalance one is in for a dismal future. The operating system must have a two-way information system which operates automatically and succinctly. It must have specific and clear-cut assignments of functional responsibility so that the organization operates as well when the manager is on vacation as when he is in the office. And it must have a reporting and accounting feedback loop geared to the essential thread of product performance, which is the reason for the company's existence. But all of these concepts would prove futile unless there is a concomitant dedication, not to business as usual, but to business as unusual.

 

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