INTRODUCTION TO OPERATION RESEARCH
       Operational Research is a systematic and analytical approach to decision 
       making and problem solving.
       O.R. as termed in USA, Canada, Africa, Australia and Operational Research 
       as termed in Europe, is an Branch of applied mathematics that uses 
       techniques and statistics to arrive at Optimal solutions to solve complex 
       problems.
       It is typically concerned with determining the maximum profit, sale, output, 
       crops yield and efficiency 
       And minimum losses, risks, cost, and time of some objective function. It 
       have also become an important part of INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING 
       PROFESSION.
      HISTORY OF OPERATION RESEARCH
       There is no clear history that marks the Birth if O.R., it is generally 
       accepted that the field originated in England during the World War II. Some 
       say that Charles Babbage (1791-1871) is the Father of O.R because his 
       research into the cost of transportation and sorting of mail led to England’s 
       University Penny Post in 1840.
       Modern Operations Research originated at the Bowdsey Research Station in 
       U.K. in 1937 to analyze and improve the working of the UK’s Early Warning 
       Rador System.
       During the Second World War about 1000 Men and Women were engaged 
       to work for British Army.
       After World War II, Military Operational Research in U.K. became 
       Operational Analysis (OA) within the U.K. Ministry of Defense with 
       expanded techniques and graving awareness.
      DEFINITIONS OF OPERATION RESEARCH
       ‘OR is the application of scientific methods, techniques and tools to problems 
       involving operations of systems so as to provide those in control of operations 
       with optimum solutions to the problems’.    — Churchman, Ackoff and Arnoff
       ‘Operations Research is a scientific method of providing executive 
       departments with a quantitative basis for decisions regarding the operations 
       under their control’. — P.M. Morse and G.F. Kimball
       ‘Operations Research is the attack of modern science on problems of likelihood 
       that arise in the management and control of men and machines, materials and 
       money in their natural environment, its special technique is to invent a 
       strategy of control by measuring, comparing and predicting probable 
       behaviour through a scientific model of a situation’. — Stafford Beer
       ‘Operations Research is applied decision theory. It uses any scientific, 
       mathematical or logical means to attempt to cope with the problems that 
       confront the executive when he tries to achieve a thorough going rationality in 
       dealing with his decision problems’. — D.W. Miller and M.K. Starr
      CHARACTERISTICS CONSTITUTING THE 
      NATURE OF OR
       Interdisciplinary team approach: Operations research has the characteristics 
       that it is done by a team of scientists drawn from various disciplines such as 
       mathematics, statistics, economics, engineering, and physics.
       Systems approach: Operations research emphasizes on the overall approach 
       to the system.
       Helpful in improving the quality of solution: Operations research cannot give 
       perfect answers or solutions to the problems. It merely gives bad answers to 
       the problems which otherwise have worst answers. Thus, OR simply helps in 
       improving the quality of the solution but does not result in perfect solution.
       Scientific method: Operations research involves scientific and systematic 
       attack of complex problems to arrive at the optimum solution.
       Goal-oriented optimum solution: Operations research tries to optimize a well-
       defined function subject to given constraints and as such is concerned with 
       the optimization theory
      CHARACTERISTICS CONSTITUTING THE 
      NATURE OF OR
       Use of models: Operations research uses models built by quantitative 
       measurement of the variables concerning a given problem and also derives 
       a solution from the model using one or more of the diversified solution 
       techniques. A solution may be extracted from a model either by conducting 
       experiments on it or by mathematical analysis.
       Requires willing executives: Operations research does require the 
       willingness on the part of the executive for experimentation to evaluate the 
       costs and the consequences of the alternative solutions of the problem. It 
       enables the decision-maker to be objective in choosing an alternative from 
       among many possible alternatives.
       Reduces complexity: Operations research tries to reduce the complexity of 
       business operations and does help the executive in correcting a 
       troublesome function and to consider innovations which are too costly and 
       complicated to experiment with the actual practice.