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( Operations research)
Operations Research (OR) in North America, South Africa and Australia, and Operational Research in Europe, is an interdisciplinary branch of applied mathematics and formal science that uses methods like mathematical modeling, statistics, and algorithms to arrive at optimal or near optimal solutions to complex problems. It is typically concerned with optimizing the maxima (profit, assembly line performance, crop yield, bandwidth, etc) or minima (loss, risk, etc) of some objective function. Operations research helps management achieve its goals using the scientific process. The terms operations research and management science are often used synonymously. When a distinction is drawn, management science generally implies a closer relationship to the problems of business management. Operations research also closely relates to Industrial engineering. Industrial engineering takes more of an engineering point of view, and industrial engineers typically consider Operations Research (OR) techniques to be a major part of their toolset. Some of the primary tools used by operations researchers are statistics, optimization, probability theory, queuing theory, game theory, graph theory, decision analysis, and simulation. Because of the computational nature of these fields, OR also has ties to computer science, and operations researchers regularly use custom-written or off-the-shelf software. Operations research is distinguished by its frequent use to examine an entire management information system, rather than concentrating only on specific elements (though this is often done as well). An operations researcher faced with a new problem is expected to determine which techniques are most appropriate given the nature of the system, the goals for improvement, and constraints on time and computing power. For this and other reasons, the human element of OR is vital. Like any other tools, OR techniques cannot solve problems by themselves.
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Operations research Subcategories
Operations research Articles
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