Moving out of the backroom
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Moving out of the backroom Tracing the changing fortunes of OR in Cheshire County Council
William Keddie and Stephen Buttrick
A second attempt - Off to a flying start
Efforts to build an OR presence in an organization can sometimes result in a strong demand for the specialist
skills that OR analysts are seen to possess.
In 1979, followIng the appointment of a new Director who had previously managed an industrially-based OR function outside local government, a specialist OR post was introduced as a supplement to the more traditional local government management services skills of work study and organization and methods. As a part of a group with a good reputation amongst its clients, an an everwatchful founding father, the new OR function found work relatively easy to come by. As a result of this demand, an assistant was appointed to support the workload. OR being a new discipline (at least to Cheshire), much of this work was of a pioneering nature - an activity for which OR seems particularly suited. This was particularly obvious in OR's use of personal computing techniques - skills which were not in common use within the rest of the MAU, or indeed anywhere in Cheshire. Notable project successes in this period are included in Table 1:
Thus,
analysts may be recognized more for their 'backroom" technical skills in computing and statistics than for their modelling and problem-solving abilities. This was the problem facing OR in Cheshire County Council three years ago. However, an appraisal of the direction of OR
and the dissolution of functional groupings with the
Council's management consultancy led to an
increasingly important ro/e for OR.
Since operational research was introduced to
Cheshire County Council in 1969, it has had rather a
mixed existence. Nevertheless, it has survived and is now undergoing something of a renaissance. In particular, OR's traditional strengths in developing new markets and services, and of modelling as an aid to decision-making
and innovation, are once more coming to the fore. Cheshire County Council no longer has a distinct OR Unit,
Table 1: Projects in 1979-82 - Off to a flying start
but the demand for traditional OR modelling skills has never been stronger. This Is a remarkable turnaround, as
until quite recently the majority of the work was fundamentally of a technical nature. In particular, there was a heavy emphasis on computing and on statistical
civic amenity (household waste) sites simulation;
and analytical work, much of it in support of work
review of stores and depots for Highways Direct
renaissance into perspective it is necessary to
maintenance provision);
County Council.
development of a school cleaning database
study/organization and methods projects. To put this
Labour Organization (responsible for roads
understand how OR has developed within Cheshire
review of lighting and stores stockholding; system;
A new beginning?
analysis of library book stock and the subsequent
development of an analytical system to aid the
In the late 1 960s, the Co
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