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OR/Industrial Engineering

The first draft (9 March 2002) could use some work. In particular, can anyone clarify the relationship between OR and industrial engineering? Also, are there other OR "tools" that should be listed? -Brady Hunsaker

This is a great article, thanks! Maybe a link to mathematics somewhere would be good, since I believe OR is often classified as applied mathematics. Is numerical analysis a tool that should be listed? AxelBoldt

I added a reference to applied mathematics. That certainly is important. I've never met an OR professional who has listed numerical analysis as a direct tool, though it is used implicitly sometimes. Based on that, I'm not going to add a reference to numerical analysis, but anyone who has a different experience is free to do so. Actually, the article currently (29 Mar 2002) only reflects my view of OR, so it would be nice if other OR people would make improvements, or at least suggest them here. -Brady

Wicked Problems

What are "Wicked Problems"? --Khendon 07:20, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've been reading google links on this subject for 20 minutes and I still have no idea what they are. I'm gonna have to call BS on this. Unless someone can explicitly state what these things are with some good examples, I'm voting to remove the link. Monkeyman 19:08, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC) P.S. The "Wicked Problems" article is on VFD here. Add your input if you like.

- - "Wicked Problems" are generally considered to be inordinately complex problems that do not have a singular solution. This may be due to too many variables and too little information, or the exact opposite. Iterative decision making might be infinite, and the context of the question is rarely objective. Perhaps the ultimate Wicked Problem is "Is There A God?." In this case it's impossible to even know how to begin to define meaningful decision criteria. An OR analyst works to find a satisfactory set of data to evaluate to be able to approximate a reasonable answer (which is even less exact than that sentence).

i.e. Without specific information an intelligence analyst has to predict where a terrorist group is likely to strike next. Unless the terrorists have a clearly and narrowly defined criteria, the number of variables will be nearly infinite. But by defining the problem as practically as possible, a general plan can be formulated to protect against higher probability attacks, or at least to the higher probability of an attack.

You can calculate the result of a specific attack relatively easily, as well as how to circumvent it. Those are separate, relatively straightforward problems with testable solutions. But prediciting the when, when, and how of the actual attack is the Wicked Problem.

Wellington Damage

The Wellington was a twin-engined aircraft that shouldn't go down if one engine was killed. (Unless it's a badly underpowered twin, which appears unlikely.) If it could come home on one engine, it would occasionally come home with damage on that "one particular point", so the example seems illogical --172.181.14.113 11:40, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

"In particular the analysis noted that the Vickers Wellington suffered no damage on one particular point of the engine nacelle. This spot turned out to be in front of the oil cooler, if the cooler took a single hit the engine would eventually sieze and the plane would not make it home."

Applications

The list of applications seems a bit narrow. OR is heavily used in forest management, for example. I use it to study habitat reserve design for endangered species. Laurel Travis 6/05

Question: differences between OR and systems engineering

I'm a senior in high school, and I'm thinking about going into operations research or systems engineering. Can someone please tell me the differences between the two? Thanks. - Sonica

Examples section: Who is Blackett?

In the example section, the mysterious man by the name of Blackett and his situation should be introduced before jumping so deep into this example. Each section should stand alone, meaning, the reader should not have to hunt for this supporting information. "Blackett's team"? Blackett's team for what? Softball? And "the war effort": the reader does not know of which war the article speaks. I believe a simple introduction to Blackett and why his team was formed and when will do superbly.