I would like to begin with a semantic analysis of the theme of this conference: Operations Research and Society. First of all the scope has been broadened to include alongside fields where OR is traditionally involved, such as business, other fields and in particular the so-called public sector. OR is certainly not completely absent in the public sector, but at least in Italy its contribution is only limited and partial. But, widening the horizon implies a change that is not only quantitative, but qualitative too. Expanding the limits of a system not only means adding extra subsystems, but also enhancing the internal relationships and revamping its purposes. This fact is stressed in a recent article by West Churchman, published also in our journal. Churchman highlights the gap between the striving for optimality that underlies our research and the minimization of a mathematical function which we end up being reduced to: ‘I saw how the railroad accounting system could reduce its costs by millions of dollars by using stratified random sampling in the monthly settlement of account, only to realize later on that the saving were mostly in the salaries of the accountants. My mental state was captivated by minimization and not (ethical) optimization. I had no idea how a just accounting system could be designed, even after spending some years in the strange land of accounting theory.’
