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RR 2012/066 Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science Editor-in-chief James J. Cochran Wiley Hoboken, NJ 2011 ISBN 978 0 470 40063 0 £1,587/$2,800 8 vols Available online at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10. 1002/9780470400531, contact publisher for pricing information
Keywords Encyclopedias, Management science, Operations research
Review DOI 10.1108/09504121211205115
The fascinating thing about operations research is that, for all its complexity, it sets out to explain lots of everyday processes. The challenge usually comes from the quantitative ways in which this explanation is carried out. For anyone working in a practical and professional way, or an academic and research way, the mix of "operations research" and "management science" (called ORMS) makes sense because they overlap and complement each other so well, each feeding into the other. If we consider, for instance, situations in which managers wonder how best to ensure and analyse information flows between partners in a supply chain, or the alternatives optimally preferable in a transportation network in an urban area, or how best to manage the inventory of perishable food products in a company, or create a model of ways in which queues form, or factor in probability into understanding risk and priority in health-care, or draw out the options for and choices of participants in competition with each other, or represent voting decisions in politics: in all and any of these situations, one is likely to use, or want to use, or get expert help in order to use, operations research and techniques based on the "harder" or more quantitative side of management. The "operations" part of operations (or operational) research derives from the use of quantitative techniques in the military, and some of the entries in this new encyclopaedia reflect this.
The field as a whole has developed substantially in recent decades, as can be seen from the existence of numerous operations research (and similarly named) professional bodies around the world (many of them identified here), and from the many journals and courses available. ORMS can and has been applied to and in industries and activities like information technology, transportation and scheduling, production and product design, financial management, and public policy. All these appear in the encyclopaedia, with many more. Under the editor-in-chief James Cochran (Louisiana Tech University), four "area" editors (Cox, Keskinocak,...