Operational research in practice: Consultancy in industry revisited

Experiences of an OR group in a large industrial organisation, from 1981 to the middle of 1988, were described in a paper published in 1989. Much has changed since then: (1) having started as an internal staff department, the group has become an independent consultancy bureau, owing to the fact that the mother company returned to her key businesses; and (2) user-friendly software to apply OR techniques such as mathematical programming and discrete event simulation have become available on PC. In this paper 160 OR projects of the above mentioned group in the period 1988–1996 are analysed. The results are compared with those in the period 1981–1988. Differences and similarities are shown and, where possible, explained. A simple conclusion can be drawn: OR still can support decision makers when they have to solve problems in complex and dynamic situations, but experts have to show them how to do it.