Future Directions 

Advice from Professionals

Conferences

Organizational Change

Future Directions

OR/MS Software

Journals

Leadership Skills

Other Information
 

In Prospects for Operations Research in the E-Business Era (Interface, March¨CApril 2001), Geoffrion and Krishnan discuss the E-Business landscape and abundant opportunities for operations research (OR) applications.OR professionals should prepare for a future in which most businesses will be e-businesses.

In Forces, Trends, and Opportunities in MS/OR (Operations Research, May-June 1992), Art Geoffrion discusses four forces of historic importance, three major trends, and five outstanding opportunities for MS/OR. Many specific implications are detailed. He believes that the field will flourish in proportion to how astutely individuals, organizations, professional societies, and universities adapt to the changing realities within which MS/OR lives.

In Computers and Operations Research: A Marriage for Growth (Operations Research, November-December 1992), Carl Harris argues that much of the future success of OR depends on its ability to marry its approaches with computer technology and then to reach out to important new application domains. OR/MS professionals are relatively well paid and secure in their jobs, so why are they not happy?

The 1997 Annual Survey of INFORMS Members reveals that OR/MS professionals want more recognition and respect. 

So what else? An important report on the status and future of OR/MS in business schools was written by the Operating Subcommittee of the INFORMS Business School Education Task Force in February, 1996. The Task Force was established by ORSA and TIMS (now merged as INFORMS) in 1994 in response to a sense that OR/MS was becoming less influential in the education of the next generation of business leaders, and to the radical changes made in April 1991 to the AACSB accreditation standards for business school curricula. These standard changes eliminated all requirements that OR/MS be included in business school curricula. The Task Force report includes specific, action-oriented recommendations for the OR/MS community in order to restore the position of OR/MS in business schools.