1. Profession Faces Tough Questions
Professor Shilepsky, Wells College
Mary Gooding Brenda Dietrich
Operations Research OR/MS Today
December 1, October 1, 2007

2. 40th anniversary of Institute for Operations Research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich Views of members of INFORMS board based on questions posed by Swiss colleagues

3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of O. R
What are the strengths and weaknesses of O.R. as a professional discipline? What makes O.R. unique?

4. Breadth – Variety of techniques & tools employed
Depth – rigor and intensity of these tools
Range – number of application areas and linkages to other fields
Abstraction – problems are abstracted to models, and results are derived for the models rather than for specific problems

5. O.R. has no single “home” in academia or industry
- Academia – engineering, business, math
- Industry – finance, information technology
Each characteristic can be debated as a strength or a weakness
Uniqueness – any attempt to separate O.R. from other disciplines would only limit the field of O.R.

6. 2. How is the existence of O.R. justified?

7. Skills Developing models – both abstract and analytical
Methods of Problem solving
Good preparation for careers in business and academia

8. How visible is O. R. in the. U. S. in academia and. society
How visible is O.R. in the U.S. in academia and society? What can and should be done to increase visibility?

9. Remains a concern for O.R.
Demand
- Business or government professionals who contract for the use of O.R. or have it embedded in business processes
- Engineering and scientific professionals who are solving problems such as optimization

10. Supply
-Education
- High school and University mathematics, business, and economics
- Few high school teachers are knowledgeable about O.R.
Campaigns by individual researchers and practitioners – reach target audience

11. 4. What are the intellectual challenges in the coming years?

12. Computational Challenges
As O.R. is used to solve one problem, larger problems with more detail arise
Continued work on algorithms to address larger problems is required
Expand domains – move into areas where there is a wealth of data, and a few major problems to solve

13. Modeling Challenges
Many business would benefit from better models of human behavior and variability
Developing industry specific modeling framework that include the application builders and the underlying solvers

14. There is reasonable balance between supply and demand
There is reasonable balance between supply and demand. Demand in Industry could be dramatically increased through marketing.

15. Without adequate capacity to create supply, the increased demand may be filled by other professions. The O.R. community may benefit from the application of capacity models to its own profession.