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Unit 1: Introduction to Operations Research




          Self Assessment                                                                       Notes

          Multiple Choice Questions:
          1.   Operations research approach is
               (a)  Multidisciplinary            (b)  Scientific

               (c)  Intuitive                    (d)  All of the above
          2.   Operations research analysts do not
               (a)  Predict future operations    (b)  Build more than one model
               (c)  Collect relevant data        (d)  Recommend decision and accept
          3.   For analyzing a problem, decision makers should normally study its

               (a)  Quantitative aspect          (b)  Qualitative aspects
               (c)  Both (a) and (b)             (d)  Neither (a) nor (b)

          1.3 Scope of Operations Research

          Operations Research addresses a wide variety of issues in transportation, inventory planning,
          production planning, communication operations, computer operations,  financial assets, risk
          management,  revenue management,  and  many  other  fields  where  improving  business
          productivity is paramount.
          As OR has made (over the years) significant contributions in virtually all industries, in almost
          all managerial and decision-making functions, and at most organizational levels, the list of OR
          applications is prodigious. Successful OR applications can be found in a broad array of industries
          dealing with challenges such as planning, routing, scheduling, forecasting, process analysis and
          decision analysis.
          OR assists decision-makers in almost any management function. To illustrate, OR supports the
          key decision making process, allows to solve urgent problems, can be utilized to design improved
          multi-step operations (processes), setup policies, supports the planning and forecasting steps,
          and measures actual results.
          1.   Manufacturing : OR’s success in contemporary business pervades manufacturing and service
               operations, logistics, distribution, transportation, and telecommunication.
               Operations research is used to for various activities which include scheduling, routing,
               workflow improvements, elimination of bottlenecks, inventory control, business process
               re-engineering, site selection, or facility and general operational planning.
               OR helps  in developing  software for  material flow  analysis  and  design for  flexible
               manufacturing facilities, using pattern recognition and graph theory algorithms. Further,
               approaches  for the  design of re-configurable manufacturing  systems and progressive
               automation of discrete manufacturing systems are under development. Additional OR
               projects focus on the industrial deployment of computer-based methods for assembly line
               balancing, business process reengineering, capacity planning, pull scheduling, and setup
               reduction.
          2.   Revenue Management: The application of OR in revenue management entails
                   first to accurately forecasting the demand, and
                   secondly to adjust the price structure over time to more  profitably allocate fixed
                    capacity.



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