OR Forum—British Operational Research in World War II

McCloskey, Joseph F.

doi:10.1287/opre.35.3.453

Cited by 30 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The genesis of operations research during the period 1940-1945 was as a group of mathematically trained scientists providing support in the planning of UK military operations (McCloskey, 1987). Much of their work was oriented towards making the most of very limited military resources and in the immediate post-war years the methods and models developed during the war found application in commercial organisations as well as government departments.…”

Section: Problem-structuring Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the future of library operations research

Warwick

2009

Library Management

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Purpose -This paper sets out to describe the development of problem-structuring methods within operations research (OR) and to suggest that these might define new areas of collaborative activity between library management and OR modellers. Design/methodology/approach -The paper identifies a requirement for the twenty-first century academic library to be flexible, inclusive and responsive to rapidly changing environments. The use of problem-structuring methods provides OR modellers with a methodological approach that can assist decision making under just these conditions, and so a management approach that places problem-structuring methods firmly within library planning processes is suggested. Findings -Since the rapid growth of library OR in the 1960s and 1970s (using primarily statistical and quantitative techniques) there has been a significant downturn in new applications and model developments within the last 20 years. This has coincided with a debate on the future of OR that has moved it away from the application of quantitative techniques, and the new paradigms evolving from that debate could stimulate a regeneration of interest in library OR. Originality/value -The paper explores a possible future for library OR. The application of OR methods within libraries has undoubtedly had its successes and a wider appreciation of the potential use of problem-structuring methods within library management could resolve many of the issues associated with planning library operations on the brink of the second decade of the twenty-first century.

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Section: Problem-structuring Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the future of library operations research

Warwick

2009

Library Management

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“…Semantically optimization is a more of a general term and OR refers to a discipline with optimization at its core [15]. Operations Research arose as an attempt to apply a number of mathematical "tools" (namely; optimization, queuing theory and other probabilistic models, and graph theory) to problems that arise in the military and, later, in industrial production [36,20].…”

Section: Empirical Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

PhD OR Is a Necessary Evil for Developing Economies Like EAC: A Personal Perspective

Kagoya¹

2020

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Irrefutably, PhD in operations research program is suggested to be the best approach to solve developing countries long term and persistent problems which require real time solutions and these are mostly applicable in OR. It should be recalled that PhD OR entails content to do with Operations research models, theories and related fields. This provides organisations or companies with best optimization solutions to achieve a competitive age among other benefits provided by the experts (operation researchers/management scientists/operation managers). This paper aimed at providing insights and awareness of the existence of PhD OR offered at UDBS under ORSEA, its meaning, benefits, relevance and applications as a marketing strategy to the potential students from developing economies like East Africa. Using interpretive-inductive design, narrative approach to qualitative method was employed to gather data from personal experience as a stakeholder and pioneer of PhD OR program at UDBS, content analysis was employed to analyse the collected data. The findings, ought to increase on the student intake which has been very low visa v the many resources which are needed during the facilitation of the program. This will also increase on the future OR experts to solve the community real problems. This paper has practical implications to all policy makers and all stakeholders of the program plus future academia. The recommendations will assist top managers to embark of meaningful and aggressive marketing strategies to attract the potential students to join the program.

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“…This was a distinctly North American development; though elements of it appeared in other jurisdictions. In the UK, while the Beveridge Report of 1944 had mapped out a much more extensive role for state action, particularly in health and welfare, this did not lead to attempts to use the techniques of planning and programming that had been learned in the war (McCloskey, 1987b) to facilitate the accomplishment of the more ambitious policy agenda, and even the term ‘policy analysis’ was not widely used until the closing years of the century. The Blair government released a White Paper on ‘modernising government’ which included a reference to ‘designing policy around outcomes’, but the subsequent handbook on ‘policy making for the 21st century’ (Cabinet Office, 1999) tended to refer to ‘good practice’ in ‘policy making’, and British policy staff were less likely to have been exposed to the systematic comparison of options taught in the North American graduate courses.…”

Section: Policy Activity As Skilled Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

The idea of policy design: Intention, process, outcome, meaning and validity

Colebatch

2017

Public Policy and Administration

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While policy design is a relatively recent term in the social science literature, the concept itself is ancient. The modernist incarnation, from the mid-20th century onwards, is grounded in the applied social sciences: the systematic calculation of problems, values, practices and outcomes. But in many ways, the confidence of the faith in systematic design was not borne out by experience. It became clear that rather than finding expert designers advising authoritative decision-makers and perhaps monitoring the activities of subordinate ‘implementers’, the world of policy was populated by multiple participants in distinct organisational locations, with divergent framings, continuing negotiation on practice, and ambiguity in the understanding of outcomes. There is clearly a tension between the image of policy design and the experience of the activity. The response to this tension in the literature on policy design has largely been aimed at reconciling the experience of practice with the norms of instrumental rationality. It has tended to give little attention to the interpretive significance of ‘design talk’ in the process of governing. This paper argues that ‘policy design’ is an exercise in giving meaning – framing activity in a way that makes practices and outcomes appropriate and valid – and develops a more comprehensive analysis of ‘policy design’ as a concept in use in both policy practice and the analysis of that practice.

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OR Forum—British Operational Research in World War II

Cited by 30 publications

References 8 publications

On the future of library operations research

On the future of library operations research

PhD OR Is a Necessary Evil for Developing Economies Like EAC: A Personal Perspective

The idea of policy design: Intention, process, outcome, meaning and validity

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