Four good decades of OR in the Canadian Department of National Defence
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Four good decades of OR in the Canadian Department of National Defence G Lindsey Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies The ®rst half of the period between 1950 and 1990 offered ideal circumstances for the development of operational research in the Canadian Defence Department. Rapid change and the continuous progress in technology provided great opportunities for military OR. Experience demonstrated the value of a dispersed organisation, with its personnel managed centrally but its projects selected by the unit to which it was attached. Frequent movement of scientists enhanced their versatility. Much of the OR dealt with the technical performance of equipment and the determination of the procedures and tactics to best exploit its capabilities. Examples are given of OR projects conducted on operational problems of the air force, the navy, and the army, and of problems in logistics, in personnel, and in strategic, social and economic questions. When downsizing struck, it was the original types of OR which survived. Keywords: defence; history of OR; OR groups; practice of OR; professional
Introduction For Canada, as for Britain and the United States, operational research began in the Second World War, and took some time after the end of the war to penetrate into industry and universities, and to create a national professional society. The problems and atmosphere in the early years of the Cold War offered an unmatched opportunity for OR to thrive in defence departments and the industries which supported them. Therefore, even if the interests of most of today's practitioners of OR do not lie in the defence sector, the experience of these early years nevertheless offers a good background for consideration of the foundations, development and success of OR groups, at least in favourable circumstances. The circumstances for the initiation of OR into the Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) in the 1950s could hardly have been more auspicious. The reputation which OR had earned among the Allied military community during the war was at its apex, as was respect for the power of applied science. Canada had established a Defence Research Board to provide the scienti®c support, including both laboratories and an operational research group (ORG), to serve all three of the armed services.1 Its Chairman was Omond Solandt, who had been Superintendent of the British Army Operational Research Group during the last years of the war.2 Exciting new expansions were under way, involving the most advanced technology, much of it applicable to both civil and military use.
Correspondence: Dr G Lindsey, 55 Westward Way, Ottawa, Ontario, K1L 5A8, Canada.
Organisationally, ORG was divided into a number of separate sections, several in Ottawa attached to the service HQs, and several with ®eld commands in Canada, Europe, and, for a time, Korea. Each OR section had military as well as civilian personnel. Their programs were determined by the staff of the mili
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