 | XIMB Fellow Programme in Management (Doctoral Level) |
| FPM Scholars [none] | About Operations Research Operations Research (OR) involves "research on operations." Thus OR is applied to problems that concern how to conduct and coordinate the operations within an organization. OR has been applied extensively in such diverse areas as manufacturing, transportation, construction, telecommunications, financial planning, health care, military, and public services. The breadth of application is very wide. OR uses an approach that resembles the way research is conducted in established scientific fields. To a considerable extent, the scientific method is used to investigate the problem of concern. In particular, the process begins by carefully observing and formulating the problem including gathering all relevant data. The next step is to construct a mathematical model that attempts to abstract the essence of the real problem. It is then hypothesized that this model is a sufficiently precise representation of the essential features of the situation that the conclusions obtained from the model are also valid in the real world. Next, suitable experiments are conducted to test this hypothesis, modify it as needed, and eventually verify some form of the hypothesis. This step is frequently referred to as model validation. Thus, in a certain sense, OR involves creative scientific research into the fundamental properties of operations. An additional characteristic of OR is that it frequently attempts to find a best solution for the problem under consideration. Rather than simply improving the status quo, the goal is to identify a best possible course of action. This "search for optimality" is an important theme in OR. Resources Books Taha, H. (2002). Operations research: An introduction (7th edition). Pearson Education. Hillier, F. S., & Liebarman, G. J. (2002). Introduction to operations research (7th edition). Tata McGraw Hill. Rardin, R. (2003). Optimization in operations research. Pearson Education. Web Sites Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences http://www.informs.org/ Expected Profile Students in this area are expected to have strong quantitative and analytical background. They should express an interest in mathematical modeling techniques and algorithms. Good computational abilities will be an advantage. |
FPM Cell Xavier Institute of Management Xavier Square, Bhubaneswar 751013, INDIA email: dean@ximb.ac.in |