O.R. and the Transition to a Post-Industrial Society

Abstract

I HAVE been asked to speak to the general theme of your conference-the Future and its implications for OR. I cannot, of course, pretend to know the future. I can, however, start the discussion process by offering some thoughts about its likely shape and posing some questions about where OR is going, which might prove useful to debate regardless of whether or not the future works out to be anything like the scenario I offer. Perhaps we should first pause to consider the scenario of the future which is implicit in the design of your conference programme. If we regard the five subject streams as different aspects of the future world in which OR will be carried on, then this future world has five component features. First, there will be developments in computing hardware and software. Few would dispute this. Second, the depressing saga of the search for U.K. economic success will continue. It is certainly hard to imagine a future life without this-how should we manage without our international GNP and productivity per capita comparisons, our balance of payments crises, our incomes policies and the like? We have reached the stage now when our falling share of world manufactures has replaced the weather as the main topic for dismal conversation. Third, the future will apparently be the age of participation and this probably relates to the fourth feature of the future-which is that it will involve problems in managing OR. Finally, the future, hopefully, will involve some innovation. I must be honest and say that I am not at all sure these parameters provide an adequate framework within which to consider your professional future. They are all necessary but, added together, are they sufficient'? Fairly obviously, there are some bits and pieces missing-energy supplies, genetic engineering, structural unemployment, the aspirations of the third world, women's lib, etc., etc. More importantly, however, we need some unifying concepts which enable us to relate different aspects of change together and make sense of the whole. Russell Ackoff' has offered one interpretation of what is happening when he writes of the transition from the machine age to the systems age. Similarly, Daniel Bell2 taking a more sociological approach, speaks of