The kind of problems we can solve
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Comment programming, network analysis techniques, simulation
The kind of problems we can solve1
languages, systems dynamics, queueing theory, stochastic processes and forecasting techniques such as exponential smoothing.
What kind of problems are we - the OR/MS community
- able to treat in order to contribute to reasonable
solutions? Two opinions have been expressed at the
But (to anticipate the reply from the opinion 1 camp)
international conference "Education in Systems Science" (systems science as a synonym of OR/MS) just 10 years ago:
is this maturity - the dramatic narrowing of the
application field (towards opinion 2) and the reduction of
the OR understanding from interdisciplinarity and systems methodology to a mathematical tool-kit?
Opinion 1: 'Systems science can contribute to (almost) any problem just by the frame of systems thinking"
lt can be continued to throw arguments back and
forth: but this would not bring us any further, and it seems to be difficult to change someone's firm support of any or
Opinion 2: "Systems science has limited tools which allow only for the solution of problems within a limited
both opinions - e.g. to reduce an opinion 1 supporter's understanding to opinion 2 or to perforate the opinion 2 supporter's fence in the direction of opinion 1.
ran ge"
(see B.A. Bayraktar et al. (eds) (1979): Education in Systems Science, Report and Proceedings, Taylor and Francis, London).
What is needed instead is mutual understanding
between the two sub-communities of OR/MS.
lt seems as if not much has changed since, with
HEINER MULLER-MERBACH
respect to both opinions:
1. IFORS Letter from the President, No.25. January 1988
Opinion 1 refers to the problem-oriented
representatives of OR/MS for whom
the characteristics of lie in its interdisciplinarity, in the team approach, OR/MS in its systemic methodology, in its understanding of the world as interdependent systems. For them, any tool whether mathematical or non-mathematical - remains a tool, a means to an end.
Opinion 2 gets support from those members of the OR/MS societies who define the field through those mathematical tools which were invented and developed within the culture of OR/MS and which are preferably discussed in the OR/MS literature. These tools can be applied to certain kinds of problems and thus contribute
to their solutions. But their range of possible applications is limited. For this part of the OR/MS community there is no doubt that the mathematical tools define the content and the potential of OR/MS.
Who is right? Which of both opinions defines real
OR/MS? There is no independent Judge:
One the one hand, the historic roots of OR would support opinion 1. lt is historic truth that in early OR (19405 and early 1 950s) the mathematical tool-kit of OR
was tiny and the field was characterized by the
interdisciplinary systems approach. On the other hand - as supporters of opinion 2 might argue - OR was quite immature at that time and reached maturity through the 1950s and early 1 960s when the basic m
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