What Is Operations Research?

Operations research is an important professional basic course of modern management. It is an emerging discipline developed in the early 1930s. Its main purpose is to provide scientific basis for managers when making decisions. It is one of the important methods to achieve effective management, correct decision-making and modern management. This discipline is applied to the cross-domain research of mathematics and formal sciences. It uses statistics, mathematical models, and algorithms to find the best or approximate best solution to complex problems.

Operations research mainly deals with issues related to planning and management that can be expressed quantitatively in economic and military activities. Of course, with the development of objective reality, many aspects of operations research not only study economic and military activities, but some have penetrated into daily life. Operations research can obtain various results through mathematical analysis and calculation according to the requirements of the problem. Finally, it proposes comprehensive and reasonable arrangements to achieve the best results.

As a discipline used to solve practical problems, operations research generally has the following steps when dealing with a wide range of problems: determining goals, formulating plans, establishing models, and formulating solutions. Although it is unlikely that operations research can deal with a very wide range of objects, some abstract models have been formed during the development of operations research and can be applied to solve a wider range of practical problems. With the development of science and technology and productivity, operations research has infiltrated into many fields and is playing an increasingly important role. Operations research itself is also evolving, covering

1. Operations research has been widely used in overall planning and coordination issues in research organizations such as industrial and commercial enterprises, military departments, and civil affairs, so its application is not restricted by industries and departments;

2. Operations research not only carries out creative scientific research on various operations, but also involves the actual management of the organization. It has strong practicality and should ultimately be able to provide constructive opinions to decision makers and should receive practical results;

3. It takes the overall optimization as the goal, and from the perspective of the system, it strives to resolve the conflicts of interest between the various departments of the system in the best way of the entire system. Find the optimal solution to the problem under study and seek the best action plan, so it can also be regarded as an optimization technology, which provides optimization methods to solve various problems ^[2]

   1. Extracting essential elements from real life situations to construct mathematical models, so that a solution related to the goals of decision makers can be sought;

   2. Explore the structure of the solution and derive the solution process of the system;

   3. Seeking the optimal solution of the system from feasible solutions ^[2]

      1. Marketing: In terms of advertising budget and media selection, competitive pricing, new product development, and sales plan formulation. For example, in the 1950s, DuPont of the United States has attached great importance to using operational research to study how to do a good job in advertising, product pricing, and the introduction of new products. General Electric conducts simulation studies in certain markets.

      2. Production plan: In terms of the overall plan, it is mainly determined from the overall plan of production, storage, and labor cooperation to adapt to changing demand plans, mainly using linear programming and simulation methods. In addition, it can also be used for production operation planning and scheduling. There are also applications in the areas of rational cutting, batching, and material management.

      3. Inventory management: Inventory model will integrate inventory theory with

      The specific content of operations research includes:

      Operations research is moving in three areas: applications of operations research, operations science, and operations mathematics.

      The new objects facing modern operations research are complex systems where economic, technological, social, ecological, and political factors intersect. Therefore, we must pay attention to large systems, pay attention to combining with system analysis, combining with futurology, and introduce some non-mathematical Methods and theories, using the thinking method of soft systems. In short, operations research is still developing, and new ideas, perspectives, and methods are constantly emerging ^[2] .