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What is Operational Research?

Operational research is a field of study in which scientists analyze patterns to make predictions for the future. This enables decision makers to make better decisions. Operational research is useful in the management of organizations, because it helps organizations of all sizes, including businesses across all industry sectors, governments, charities, communities and even individuals. It helps create strategical decisions to maximize potential. Most of the problems operational research is used for are complex, and involve a lot of uncertainty. Therefore, advanced analytics, modeling, problem structuring, simulation, and data science are all used to determine the best and most practical solution to the problem. Now you may be wondering, what exactly are the benefits of using operational research. First of all, it can cause a wide range of improvements including cost reduction, revenue enhancement, saving lives, raising levels of customer service or risk reduction. Operational research also creates more productive systems because it takes into account all the available options and outcomes. Overall, operational research is a very interesting field, and the future of it is endless.

The process of operational research has 5 steps:

  1. Identifying a problem that needs to be solved

  2. Constructing a model around the problem that resembles the real world and variables

  3. Using the model to derive solutions to the problem

  4. Testing each solution on the model and analyzing its success

  5. Implementing the solution to the actual problem

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