What is Operational Research? – Full feature

what is operational research in a nutshell Oh R is the discipline of applying appropriate analytical methods to help make better decisions [Music] in today's world Oh our is all around us it can be found in just about everything we do [Music] it forms the building blocks for our everyday world from buying a flight to queuing for our weekly grocery it helps save lives it drives business and government without oh are the modern world we take for granted wouldn't exist there has never been a better time to be an operational researcher today most organizations have masses of data the ways we communicate are fast computers are sophisticated and powerful and the business world is now investing heavily in putting operational research at the center of what they do this is not maths in theory but maths in the real world making a real difference [Music] never before have so many people all products needed to be moved around the world as passengers and consumers we expect everything to run smoothly whether we are buying flights commuting to work or wanting food readily available at the supermarkets for businesses moving people and products around can be a complicated and expensive matter here at British Airways getting the mats rights can make passengers more satisfied with the service and make millions of pounds worth of difference to the business our department of British Airways has been here a long time we influence a whole range of decisions we're a big complicated business and our thinking is pretty critical to taking the right decisions our helps influence a range of decisions across the business right from which aircraft should we buy where we should fly who our alliance partners should be how we should build the new a380s how many tickets we should sell of what type or what our customer data is telling us right across the range of the business this is the Airbus a380 the largest passenger aircraft in the world these new aircraft are a fantastic opportunity for British Airways to expand but with this opportunity comes risk we've never operate an aircraft this big before and getting it wrong and have huge impacts on the entire operation there could be delays which would impact customer satisfaction and getting it wrong could in her additional costs which obviously will impact profitability the business was interested in seeing how long it would take between the aircraft arriving and then being ready to leave again we chose to solve the problem using simulation and the reason we use simulation was because it allowed us to run multiple scenarios in a safe and virtual environment we were able to recommend to the business how many staff were required how many doors we needed to use to board the aircraft to ensure that boarding took no longer than it currently does on the Boeing 747 whilst making sure the customers have the best experience possible [Applause] who are really valued here by the company our thinking and our insights incredibly useful when you're trying to take really difficult business decisions and also our people often bring that different way of looking at a problem that you you don't see yourself in today's world all of us expect the things we want and need to be readily available that means shelves to be always stocked and deliveries to arrive on time this is what we term the supply chain of a business for a major UK retailer like as des it's crucial that this process runs like clockwork and ort Niek sly at the very heart of keeping the business running we service over 500 shops in the UK serving almost eight million customers every week of the year clearly in distribution we have a huge responsibility to make sure that our customers served on time with product that's as fresh as possible we use operational research pretty much every day in our working lives one of our biggest challenges in the last five years is about how quickly we can get the products from point of manufacturer to point of delivery into our depots our folks on route planning and analysis has made a real big difference to the way that we operate it means that we take miles off the road we reduce the impact on the environment and has helped our cost position one of our biggest recent initiatives is the utilization of high capacity delivery vehicles delivering to our shops through the analysis that we completed we were able to prove that by getting almost twice as much product on these vehicles now the substantial cost benefit for us and it saves us 10 million pounds a year which could reinvest back into price here at Asda so our techniques run right through the business helping to influence big decisions such as where to build a new store or depo building a new Depot is a big investment for Asda and can cost up to sixty million pounds so it's critical that we build in the right location we do this through a large amount of modeling and analysis tools to help us understand where in the country we will be building new stores so we're that their phone needs to be here o R is used to ensure that Asda are constantly improving every process within the Depot's to get the products out to the stores more quickly I reckon continuous improvement for distribution and we look at our Depot's and the processes that we complete how long they take and how we can improve them so that we can make the deaf/hoh more efficient every single day that we've come to work it's a new challenge and if we can use operational research to support that and make easier and better for our customers then we've done a great job collectively [Music] [Applause] the world of sport isn't an obvious place where operational research is at hand yet many of our much-loved activities rely on oh are and whether designing a sports stadium or even an Olympic Village Oh our helps make the spectators experience much more enjoyable this is the Emirates Stadium in North London home of Arsenal Football Club here Oh our had a big part to play in the design and construction of the stadium as well as in the efficient running of the site on match days just imagine the matchday situation when you arrive at the station itself oh our starts to feature immediately you get offered off the train people marshal you towards the stadium that a part of the process has already got o are taken into account trying to find the safest way for you to move then when you reach the stadium itself the number of turnstiles for example have been determined by an O our technique and then actually move around the stadium the places where the signs are located and the way you move to your seat will also been determined by by different Oh our technique so it's really important to everything about this this stadium [Applause] the design of the stadium is obviously magnificent it's a it's a sixty thousand capacity stadium and without a model of people moving in and out you'd never know weather during a match situation if there was a fire for example what if those people could be evacuated safely within the 8-minute guidelines [Music] [Applause] [Music] the explosive world of Formula One hi-c multi-million pound racing technology the in Formula one we we require more and more expert on kind of risk analysis and game theory and simulation Formula one where split-second decisions are the difference between success and failure and often these decisions are a matter of mathematics resting in the hands of some of the world's finest operational researchers I think the first thing that people will see their direct application of aura is undefined the race strategy they leave your fuel load estimating competitors fuel load and where they're going to stop and when we're going to heat traffic during the race when is a good luck to come out of the pit stops and tire degradation this is a whole estimation that we need to do as they race develops [Applause] I strongly believe that Allah has a greater role to play in Formula one for the future [Music] central government is the biggest business in Britain and in government's öor gets involved in just about everything that affects our day-to-day life operational research plays a crucial role in improving the quality of decision making right the way through the system from senior decision-makers in departments right the way up to the prime minister if you've ever interacted with schools obviously you have or with hospitals or with the transport system you'll have had some benefit from the rollo are as played in improving the way that those services are delivered traveling on motorways how does the Department of Transport actually deploy its various emergency services UK borders Agency plays a role in actually modeling the number of people who arrive and leave the country the home office they do significant amounts of work on how we're trying to achieve crime across the country doing oh are in the heart of government really gives you the opportunity to influence decision makers right at the very center it's a real bars of a drive to actually be changing the way that we're delivering the things that we all live and breathe and interact with it on a daily basis this is the George's Hospital in London here using our techniques can literally be the difference between life and death one of the really big things that hospitals have to think about is how long patients stay and so therefore how many beds and how many wards and how many doctors you have to look after them it's really important for us to be able to get as far as we can the right capacity for the patients who are going to come through the door so that we can give them the treatment that they need when they need it [Music] patients when they're referred by their GP either into A&E or into our patients enter a series of Q's and one of the things that we really have to do and we've been working very hard on is getting those Q's as short as we can and making sure that we don't have bottlenecks in our system and so therefore we need queuing theory and operational research techniques to help us make sure that we can get out right [Music] operational research is often at the heart of what makes a business run efficiently here everything must be planned and timed precisely to avoid bottlenecks tata steel manufactures steel products and operational research techniques are key to improving productivity and reducing costs what we produce here are big steel coils that we sell on to various companies that produce everyday objects such as tin cans office furniture cars and fridges the o.r team currently consists of 12 members we provide an in-house service where we incorporate ever cells in the various project teams for all the departments we use lots of software within the department where we can build real-world processes on a computer screen and visually show these to the project managers the process specialists and they can play out various scenarios without having to work them out on real-world processes this in turn could save a lot of money and is a lot safer in the long run here on the plant we've had a throughput of up to 4.4 million tons of steel and we're looking to take that up to 5.3 million tonnes so we got a project to look at the infrastructure to see if it can handle the extra 20% through but the benefits of producing 5.3 million tonnes as opposed to 4.4 will mean that cost per tonne will come down as an organization the reason why we got the o our team involved is because when you're looking at your own process and you're so close to it I think you make a lot of assumptions and the model will take those assumptions away they started coming to our meetings first of all but then we got into the Nitty Gritty going out on plant and getting them as close to the process as we could so they could see for themselves as you think about what the future may hold for you if you want to consider taking up a career in operational research take a look at the interesting university degrees out there that are the best route into what we call o are the science of back offering you a truly inspirational challenge that will test even the most inquisitive of minds but are many different academic paths into operational research although most people tend to have degrees with mathematic statistics computer science or management contact pupils will learn a number of our techniques such as computer simulation optimization queueing theory in the trick control from structure and methods to name just a few you also get a good balance between a theoretical work and an appreciation of the application of these techniques that will involve case studies project work which might involve working with a real-life company on a real world problem operational researchers encouraging innovation in successful organization what I really like about working in R is the variety of problems we need to solve with being able to work on the different production processes on a week-to-week basis and going out to visit in the plant and help them process specialists solve their problems if you really want to use your analytical mathematical logical skills to actually make a difference so R gives you the perfect opportunity to actually change the way people live their lives excellent problem solvers that the rest of us turn to to help revolutionize the way we live think about an operational research career is that the variation you work and you've people work for any department you can work even with the department that protects your what kind they're always buried after the first week sounds on a project right from the start and I felt really important member of the team I was meeting with it was really exciting I enjoy the role that I do because of the variety of the things that I can be involved in and I also get to see behind the scenes of a big UK retailer and then the scale of the operations that we have in the different process we complete within our Dockers and I also get to be involved in the decision-making process behind our produce massive work is somewhat different the massive score you're not giving a structured problem you have to come you get a general problem you need to structure it into a math problem and then solve it and also the decision and result you come up with is actually used in real-life decisions do you want to take decisions that can make a real difference if you'd like to learn more about oh our go to learn about Oro UK UK UK UK UK

Channel: The OR Society

Views: 66,344

Rating: 4.8993711 out of 5

Keywords: operational research, operations research, analytics, science of better, the OR Society, decision-making

Id: 0oMVVx81kCs

Length: 17min 6sec (1026 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 27 2016