WHAT IT CAN DO FOR YOU
The Operations Research Value Proposition
O.R. consistently delivers significant value – strategic to tactical, top-line to bottom-line – to the organizations and executives who use it. Organizations worldwide in business, the military, health care, and the public sector are realizing powerful benefits from O.R., including:
Business insight Providing quantitative and business insight into complex problems
Business performance Improving business performance by embedding model-driven intelligence into an organization’s information systems to improve decision making
Cost reduction Finding new opportunities to decrease cost or investment
Decision making Assessing the likely outcomes of decision alternatives and uncovering better alternatives
Forecasting Providing a better basis for more accurate forecasting and planning
Improved scheduling Efficiently scheduling staff, equipment, events, and more
Planning Applying quantitative techniques to support operations, tactical planning, and strategic planning
Pricing Dynamically pricing products and services
Productivity Helping organizations find ways to make processes and people more productive
Profits Increasing revenue or return on investment; increasing market share
Quality Improving quality as well as quantifying and balancing qualitative considerations
Recovery Gaining greater control andachieving turn-around
Resources Gaining greater utilization from limited equipment, facilities, money, and personnel
Risk Measuring risk quantitatively and uncovering factors critical to managing and reducing risk
Throughput Increasing speed or throughput and decreasing delays
Answering the challenges you face today Organizations and the world in which they operate continue to become more complex. Huge numbers of choices and relentless time pressures and margin pressures make the decisions you face more daunting and more difficult. Meanwhile, new enterprise applications and software are generating massive amounts of data – and it can seem like an overwhelming task to turn that data into insight and answers.
But all that data and the availability of more and cheaper computing power are creating an important opportunity for decision makers – one O.R. is ideally designed to help you take advantage of. O.R. professionals thrive on challenges that involve large numbers of variables, complex systems, and significant risks.
As a result, O.R. can help today’s executives with many of the specific challenges they face, such as:
Deciding where to invest capital in order to grow
Getting more value out of ERP, CRM, and other software systems
Figuring out the best way to run a call center
Locating a warehouse or depot to deliver materials over shorter distances at reduced cost
Forecasting sales for a new kind of product that has never been marketed before
Solving complex scheduling problems
Planning for a potential terrorist attack
Deciding when to discount, and how much
Getting more cycles out of manufacturing equipment
Optimizing a portfolio of investments, whether it contains financial securities or pharmaceutical product inventory
Deciding how large a budget to devote to Internet vs. traditional sales
Planting crops in the face of uncertainty about weather and consumer demand
Speeding up response time, whether selling a product or responding to a 911 call
For dozens of O.R. cases that you can search by industry, functional area, and benefit, go to Success Stories.

What Operations Research Is
In a nutshell, operations research (O.R.) is the discipline of applying advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions.
By using techniques such as mathematical modeling to analyze complex situations, operations research gives executives the power to make more effective decisions and build more productive systems based on:
More complete data
Consideration of all available options
Careful predictions of outcomes and estimates of risk
The latest decision tools and techniques
A uniquely powerful approach to decision makingYou’ve probably seen dozens of articles and ads about solutions that claim to enhance your decision-making capabilities.
O.R. is unique. It's best of breed, employing highly developed methods practiced by specially trained professionals. It’s powerful, using advanced tools and technologies to provide analytical power that no ordinary software or spreadsheet can deliver out of the box. And it’s tailored to you, because an O.R. professional offers you the ability to define your specific challenge in ways that make the most of your data and uncover your most beneficial options.
To achieve these results, O.R. professionals draw upon the latest analytical technologies, including:
Simulation Giving you the ability to try out approaches and test ideas for improvement
Optimization Narrowing your choices to the very best when there are virtually innumerable feasible options and comparing them is difficult
Probability and Statistics Helping you measure risk, mine data to find valuable connections and insights, test conclusions, and make reliable forecasts
Already at work around you O.R. has enhanced organizations and experiences all around us. From better scheduling of airline crews to the design of waiting lines at Disney theme parks. From two-person start-ups to Fortune 500® leaders. From global resource planning decisions to optimizing hundreds of local delivery routes. All benefit directly from O.R. Shouldn't you?
To learn more about what operations research is and how it works, go to More Resources.
Ready to find out how O.R. can create significant value to you and your organization? Go to What It Can Do for You.