Author: Maurice W Kirby
Publisher: World Scientific
Published: 2003-06-18
Total Pages: 476
ISBN-13: 1783261323
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This is the first of two projected volumes on the history of operational research (OR) in Britain commissioned by the UK Operational Research Society. Based upon a vast array of published and unpublished sources, the book provides an original account of the discipline's pre-war and wartime origins. This serves as a prelude to a wide-ranging analysis of the diffusion of OR into the public and private sectors after 1945. The chapters on the role of OR in iron and steel and coalmining, and its rapid adoption in the UK corporate sector after 1960, will be of particular interest to practitioners. The book also analyses and explains the diffusion of OR into local and central government and provides an informed commentary on the origins and subsequent history of the OR Society. Professor Kirby has related the development of OR in the UK to contemporary developments in the USA. The book concludes with a resume of the post-1970 debates concerning the future trajectory of OR. Contents:The Origins of Operational Research: Military and Other Antecedents to 1937The Beginnings of Operational Research: British Air Strategy, 1920–1940The Wartime Diffusion of Operational Research, 1940–1945Operational Research in Bomber Command, 1941–1945The Postwar Labour Government and Operational Research 1945–1951Operational Research in Iron and SteelOperational Research in CoalminingThe Diffusion of Operational Research After 1960: The Corporate SectorOperational Research in the Public SectorThe Institutional Development of Operational Research Readership: Graduate students, academics and practitioners in operational research and management science, as well as military, business and economic historians. Key Features:This is the first detailed history of operational research in Britain, written by an established economic historian. It is not a narrow history of the subject — the development and diffusion of OR is placed firmly within the context of Britain's recent political, social and economic history.Sponsored by the Operational Research Society, the book is based upon a wide range of archival sources, oral interviews and secondary literature.The book has been written at a level which can be understood by readers unfamiliar with OR methodology and techniques.For OR practitioners and academics, the book is an essential aid to understanding the background to the debates and controversies which affected the OR community in the 1970s and 1980s and which still resonate today.For specialist historians, the book will appeal to those with interests in the ‘scientific management’ of modern warfare; social historians wishing to further their understanding of the ‘rise of professions’; economic and business historians with interests in Britain's post-1945 industrial and managerial development; and political historians seeking further insights into the modernisation of central government unleashed by the 1964–70 Labour Government.Reviews:“Although the brief of this book might appear narrow, Kirby has commendably broadened its scope to show the relevance of OR to, or used it as an example of wider historical and economic issues, most obviously in his discussions about the penetration of Taylorism and scientific management in Britain compared to the US.” Business History “… is an excellent authorized history, produced for the Operational Research (OR) Society. Its novelty lies not in what it tells us about OR at war but about OR in peace.”The Economic History Review “The interesting historical perspective presented by the author shows that the success of operational research in obtaining the status of an independent science considerably increased the level of its technical requirements and therefore is also responsible for a closed-loop mathematical development and a loss of contact with application.”Mathematical Reviews
