What is Operations Research?

Operations research (shortened "OR") is a field that focuses on developing math models to help folks make better decisions. This may include optimizing over different strategies or describing a complicated system.

These models may consider:

Lots of options ("decision variables")
Lots of restrictions ("constraints")
Lots of uncertainty in what might happen ("stochasticity")
Lots of data ("parameters")
Changing conditions ("dynamic")
Multiple decision-makers
Multiple objectives
Etc.

Given all of these conditions, isn't it too complicated to figure out the best choice? How could we possibly figure out what's optimal?

Operations research to the rescue! OR models can handle problems that are much too big for a human to solve. The trick is to work smarter, not harder. Just like you may have learned in Calc I that the quickest way to find the minimum value of some types of functions is to set the derivative equal to 0, there are advanced algorithms that help researchers and practitioners solve very complicated models of real-world systems.

The goal is to develop a good model that both: represents the real world problem you're trying to solve and can be solved in a reasonable time frame using algorithms. This is called: math modeling (and Dr. Tucker loves it!). By solving these models, she helps subject matter experts make better decisions.