Operations Research Society Of America Research Articles

Operations Research and National Planning

I want to apologize in advance for what I am about to do to you. My presentation will not be in the relaxed spirit of this occasion, nor will it be entertaining. In fact it will be very trying to you. My only excuse for such behavior is the deep conviction that my subject is a very important one. I wish I were as convinced that my treatment of it merits using this opportunity in the way that I am going to. The subject is “Operations Research and National Planning.” Retiring Presidential Address at the banquet of the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Operations Research Society of America, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 9, 1957.

Letter to the Editor—A Proposal for Merging ORSA and TIMS

It is desirable that the Operations Research Society of America and The Institute of Management Sciences be merged, and the time for this merger is ripe.

Operations Research Society of America

—Election of Fellows and Members —Report of the Secretary

Tenth National Meeting of the Society, San Francisco, California, November 15–16, 1956

The tenth national meeting of the Operations Research Society of America was held at the Hotel Mark Hopkins, San Francisco, California, on November 15 and 16, 1956. This was the second meeting of the Society to be held in California. There were 456 registrations, of which 209 were by members and 247 by nonmembers. Abstract of papers presented follow.

Operations-Research Services

On March 15, 1956, the following letter was sent to some fifteen organizations believed to be offering industrial operations-research services and not a part of educational institutions. ‘Management's Corner’ in Operations Research The Journal of the Operations Research Society of America is going to run a series of brief accounts of agencies providing operations-research services. These accounts are to be factual rather than propagandistic. They are intended to provide management with information rather than stimulation. I would like to obtain from you or someone in your group a write-up, not to exceed four double-spaced typewritten pages, in which the following questions are answered (in any order your desire). The text of queries follows. A presentation of the OR activity of 6 companies is presented.

Education for Operations Research

Education for Operations Research must meet two distinct and important challenges: (a) how to provide a continuing flow of new young scientists, in rapidly increasing quantity, to meet the needs of the fast-growing number of operations-research groups developing in industry and the somewhat more slowly expanding demands from the government departments of this country and others, and (b) how to provide opportunities for scientists who have worked continuously as operations analysts for many years to acquaint themselves with the advances in their own fields of science. I would like to discuss these two aspects of education for operations research briefly with you this evening (Address of the Retiring President at the banquet of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Operations Research Society of America, Washington, D.C., May 10, 1956.).

Fallacies in Operations Research

Address presented to the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Operations Research Society of America on May 10, 1956. Prepared comments to this address were made by Charles Hitch and Glen Camp. Hitch's comments are printed at the end of this paper.

Eighth National Meeting of the Society—Ottawa, Canada, January 9–10, 1956

The Eighth National Meeting of the Operations Research Society of America was held at the Chateau Laurier Hotel, Ottawa, Canada, on January 9 and 10, 1956. This was the first meeting of the Society to be held in Canada. There were 186 paid registrations, of which 105 were by members and 81 by non-members. Including registrants, wives, and guests, approximately 210 were in attendance. This report contains abstracts of the presentations.

Introduction

Beginning with this issue, the Journal of the Operations Research Society of America takes the more succinct title OPERATIONS RESEARCH, with the old title continued as subtitle. OPERATIONS RESEARCH will hereafter be published bimonthly, in February, April, June, August, October, and December. With this increased frequency of publication, the subscription price for volume 4 will be raised to $7.50, but only for subscriptions received after June 30, 1956. After this date, the foreign subscription differential will be eliminated. The single-copy price will remain at $1.50. Commencing with the April issue, a new section, Management's Corner, edited by RUSSELL L. ACKOFF, will appear in OPERATIONS RESEARCH. This section will be addressed to management, in business, industry, and public and military administration. It will contain non-technical presentations of case studies, expositions of operations-research tools primarily from the point of view of their areas of usefulness, and notes and notices of particular interest to management.

The Operations Research Society of America

—The Lanchester Prize Committee —Report of the Secretary on Balloting on the Constitutional Amendment —Report of the Treasurer —Certificate of Audit —Preliminary Ballot of the Nominating Committee Operations Research, ISSN 0030-364X, was published as Journal of the Operations Research Society of America from 1952 to 1955 under ISSN 0096-3984.

Expectancy of Multiple Vehicular Breakdowns in a Tunnel

One of the principal operating problems at vehicular tunnels is that of traffic stoppages resulting from disabled vehicles. These vehicles break down for such various reasons as flat tires, overheating, no gasoline, and mechanical failures. The stoppages are particularly troublesome in peak traffic periods when the full capacity of the tunnel may be badly needed. Subaqueous tunnels consist of two-lane tubes, so that a stoppage in one lane immediately reduces the capacity of the tube affected by one-half. Actually, the reduction in capacity is even greater than one-half, since the movement of traffic in the unstopped lane is reduced by the operations necessary to remove the disabled vehicle. Operations Research, ISSN 0030-364X, was published as Journal of the Operations Research Society of America from 1952 to 1955 under ISSN 0096-3984.

Letter to the Editor—Priority Assignment—A Correction

Dr. John Danskin has called to my attention the fact that formula (3) of my paper “Priority Assignment in Waiting Line Problems” (this Journal, vol. 2, p. 70, Feb. 1954), which gives the expected waiting time for units of each priority level of a single-channel waiting-line system is not, as I stated, valid when the system under consideration is in a permanently saturated state; that is, when the volume of incoming traffic is greater than can be handled by the system. Operations Research, ISSN 0030-364X, was published as Journal of the Operations Research Society of America from 1952 to 1955 under ISSN 0096-3984.

Parametric Objective Function (Part 2)—Generalization

In Part 1 (Saaty, T. L., S. I. Gass. 1954. Parametric objective function (Part 1). J. Opns. Res. Soc. Am. 2 316.), the cost function in the general linear programming problem was parametrized with one parameter and the problem of generating solutions completely studied. In Part 2, a generalization to the n-parameter case is outlined, with special emphasis on the two-parameter case. An example is supplied for this case. Operations Research, ISSN 0030-364X, was published as Journal of the Operations Research Society of America from 1952 to 1955 under ISSN 0096-3984.

Where is the New Blood?

Speech given at the dinner of the Seventh National Meeting of the Society in Los Angeles on August 15, 1955. Operations Research, ISSN 0030-364X, was published as Journal of the Operations Research Society of America from 1952 to 1955 under ISSN 0096-3984.

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis for Strategic Decisions

No abstract available. Operations Research, ISSN 0030-364X, was published as Journal of the Operations Research Society of America from 1952 to 1955 under ISSN 0096-3984.

Letter to the Editor—Inequality-Constrained Stationary-Value Problems

No abstract available. Operations Research, ISSN 0030-364X, was published as Journal of the Operations Research Society of America from 1952 to 1955 under ISSN 0096-3984.

Determination of the Maximal Steady State Flow of Traffic Through a Railroad Network

A simple and rapid method of estimating the maximal steady state flow of traffic through a railway network is described and illustrated by examples The method, as presently described, is entirely empirical in character and no generality is claimed. Essentially, it is an illustration of the application of the techniques of gaming to certain classes of mathematical problems. This study is an outcome of a suggestion by General F. S. Ross (U.S.A., Ret.), T. E. Harris, and others, and it has been prepared as a contribution to their much broader project. Operations Research, ISSN 0030-364X, was published as Journal of the Operations Research Society of America from 1952 to 1955 under ISSN 0096-3984.

An Analog Solution of Programming Problems

A simple, fast, and accurate method for solving (static) programming problems is presented. The method is particularly well adapted to electronic analog computers. The problem is interpreted as the asymptotic solution of a problem in the dynamics of a massless particle. The “particle” is considered to move in n-space away from those regions forbidden by the constraints of the problem and toward optimization of the criterion function. Constraint or criterion functions need not be linear but merely expressible with available computer components. The speed with which a solution is attained is under the operator's control. Operations Research, ISSN 0030-364X, was published as Journal of the Operations Research Society of America from 1952 to 1955 under ISSN 0096-3984.

Seventh National Meeting of the Society, Los Angeles, California, August 15–17, 1955

The Seventh National Meeting of the Society was held at the Statler Hotel in Los Angeles on August 15–17, 1955. It was the largest meeting of the Society thus far and the first on the West Coast. Including registrants, wives, and guests, over 500 were present. There were 454 paid registrations, of which 158 were by members and 296 by non-members. Abstracts of contributions are presented. Operations Research, ISSN 0030-364X, was published as Journal of the Operations Research Society of America from 1952 to 1955 under ISSN 0096-3984.

An Appreciation of Systems Analysis

Military systems analysis is an extension of operations-research techniques of World War II to problems of broader context and longer range—e.g., force composition and development as well as operations decisions. Greater complexity is inevitable as we attempt analyses to aid decisions affecting more distant time periods: growth in number of relevant variables, compounding of uncertainties; increased importance of enemy reactions; complications of time phasing, the need for a broader concept of criteria Techniques available to the systems analyst for dealing with these complexities are less than satisfactory. “Factoring” is inevitable. All routine or mechanistic approaches are deficient; e.g., expected value and minimax criteria. Design and criteria problems are of dominant importance. The systems analyst may have to be content with better rather than optimal solutions, or with devising and costing sensible methods of hedging; or merely with discovering critical sensitivities. He has an important role as inventor of systems. The difficulties of systems analysis are rooted in the nature of the military problems. Other methods—e.g, piecemeal analysis or intuition—do not escape them and have limitations of their own. Military systems analysis provides a framework for combining the knowledge of experts in many fields to reach solutions which transcend any individual expert's judgment. Operations Research, ISSN 0030-364X, was published as Journal of the Operations Research Society of America from 1952 to 1955 under ISSN 0096-3984.