Success and survival of OR groups – where to from here?

Over the past few years many authors, including Fildes and Ranyard, have documented the demise of some traditional forms of OR practice. The same trends have been evident in New Zealand, but we have also seen the development of new areas of OR endeavour, and numerical growth in the profession, as a result of adopting a ‘dual OR’ paradigm which emphasises the use of OR to create and support structures, particularly internal or external ‘markets’, within which independent decision-makers can operate. This implies the need to train a small group of OR people specialising in high level design issues, and a much larger group able to assist relatively small decision-making units.