Operations Research | Working with an O.R. Professional

HOW TO START USING IT

Working with an O.R. Professional

You'll find helpful guidelines here for ensuring the success of your O.R. projects.

Working with internal resources
If you decide to start an operations research department in your organization, get the most out of it.

Organization chart: Let the O.R. function report to an executive who is an O.R. enthusiast. Place O.R. where it’s able to serve the range of clients you want — organization-wide or within a part of the organization.
Project mix: Naturally you want the O.R. team to work on those applications that offer the most potential to benefit the organization. If your top-priority projects are developing major systems with "O.R. inside," these require significant time and cost. However, don’t overlook O.R. as an important resource for quick-turn-around work under tight deadlines; with specialized O.R. software, giving advantageous support quickly is practical.
Finding more opportunities: Include your operations research director in executive group meetings so that you may explore ways different parts of your organization might take advantage of O.R. expertise.
Staffing your department: You can recruit operations research staff from various sources.

Contact the Job Placement Service of INFORMS (the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences), the non-profit sponsor of this Website, at 1-800-4INFORMS or INFORMS Job Placement Service.
Different universities train O.R. professionals in different places. At an engineering school, you may find them in an O.R. department or sometimes in one or several of the other engineering departments. At a business school, O.R. often is called management science. Contact your local university or consult a list of universities with operations research or management science departments by going to Operations Research Educational Programs.
Several professional recruiters have staff who place O.R. professionals. Among them are Smith Hanley and Analytic Recruiting.
If you're already working with O.R. consultants, ask them to recommend others who might join your organization full–time.

Working with external resources
You will find O.R. expertise at small, one-person firms, at medium-sized firms, and at large consulting firms. Larger consulting firms usually offer at least some O.R. specialists. Also, O.R. professors in engineering schools and business schools often accept consulting assignments.

When you evaluate candidates, consider examining their:

Experience in your industry, shown by references from previous clients
Experience working with specific challenges similar to yours
General experience in O.R. practice
Degrees earned and the institutions that granted their degrees
Awards, such as those bestowed by INFORMS (go to INFORMS Prizes for more information on leading O.R. awards)

As would be true hiring any consultants, when you hire O.R. consultants try to agree up front on a clear statement of the assignment. And arrange to give the consultants the support they require in access to people, cooperation, and tangible resources. Great results usually come from a true team effort between members of the organization and the consultants.

You should also consider how you will evaluate the success of an O.R. project. Have your O.R. consultant recommend ways to measure the effectiveness of the implementation.

Structuring an engagement
The four basic phases of typical O.R. engagements are described below. You may also want to consult the 90-Day Plan for putting O.R. to work.

Step 1: Assessment (1 day to 1 month)
Start by calling in an O.R. professional to assess how O.R. might help you address your challenge or opportunity. Depending on the subject matter, you may accomplish this step with a conversation or an assessment study.

Step 2: Quick-turn-around analysis (1 day to 2 months)
If you and the O.R. professional agree to proceed, the next steps are determined by the nature of the assignment. Some examples:

Critiquing technical material or evaluating a software package with "O.R. inside": The O.R. professional performs the work and reports results.
Advanced analysis for a one-time, critical decision: The professional prepares and interprets an advanced analysis, in ongoing interaction with you and others who either furnish input or participate in the decision.
Preparing for system development to improve recurring decisions: The professional designs an information system with "O.R. inside" to identify preferred choices on demand.

Step 3: Prototyping – for system development only
(1 month to 3 months)
A development team (including O.R. professionals, software engineers, and operations staff as required) is assembled. The team constructs, tests, and refines a system prototype while interacting frequently with prospective users. The O.R. professional also recommends changes in processes and procedures necessary for effective system performance.

Step 4: Implementation – for system development only (1 month to 1 year)
The development team works with management and users to develop the system, install the system, train operators, revise processes and procedures, provide for maintenance and future upgrades, and measure benefits.

Key consulting agreement elements
When you begin working with O.R. consultants, ordinarily you will create a formal consulting agreement. Examples of contents:

Clear description of the assignment
Consultant and client responsibilities
Deliverable materials – content, format, level of detail
Schedule for both the consultants and the organization, including project milestones
Project risks (if any) agreed upon by the client and the consultant
Fees
Change-control procedure

Ready to engage an O.R. professional with the right expertise? Go to Find an O.R. Professional.