Operations research - contemporary role in managerial decision making

Abstract

As the global environment becomes most competitive, Operations Research has gained significance in applications like world - class Manufacturing systems (WCM), Lean production, six - sigma quality management, Benchmarking, Just – in - Time (JIT) inventory techniques. The growth of global markets and the resulting increase in competition have highlighted the need for Operation Research. To survive and lead the today‘s highly competitive and demand drivenmarket, pressure is on management to make economic decisions. One of the essential managerial skills is ability to allocate and utilize resources appropriately in the efforts of achieving the optimal performance efficiently. In some cases such as small - scale low complexity environment, decision based on intuition with minimal quantitative basis may be reasonably acceptable and practical in achieving the goal of the organization. However, for a large - scale system, both quantitative and qualitative (i.e. intuition, experience, common sense) analyses are required to make the most economical decisions. Using Operations Research techniques including Linear Programming, Discrete Event Simulation and Queuing Theory, organization leaders can make high quality decisions. Operations managers are not expected to be experts in any decision science tools; however, he or she must have fundamental knowledge of such tools to acquire right resources and to make the most economically sounding decisions for the company as a whole. Present paper is an attempt to study the importance of Operations research and various techniques used to improve the operational efficiency of the organization.