Operations Research
Problem1.3-1
Application：Logistical planning of shipments Organization:Federal Express Federal Express is the world’s largest express transportation company,providing fast and reliable services for important documents ,packages,and freight.It’s success was gave the credit to the use of Operations Research. Operations Research modeling was a way of life for Federal Express,there were three famous Model planning system,one is origin-destination flow model which worked out a 26-city system that make FedEx’s first success.This model and the planning had served as the foundation for the $8 billion plus corporation that is the Federal Express today.
Since the advent of the industrial revolution, the world has seen a remarkable growth in the size and complexity of organizations. The artisans’ small shops of an earlier era have evolved into the billion-dollar corporations of today. An integral part of this revolutionary change has been a tremendous increase in the division of labor and segmentation of management responsibilities in these organizations. The results have been spectacular. However, along with its blessings, this increasing specialization has created new problems, problems that are still occurring in many organizations. One problem is a tendency for the many components of an organization to grow into relatively autonomous empires with their own goals and value systems, thereby losing sight of how their activities and objectives mesh with those of the overall organization. What is best for one component frequently is detrimental to another, so the components may end up working at cross purposes. A related problem is that as the complexity and specialization in an organization increase, it becomes more and more difficult to allocate the available resources to the various activities in a way that is most effective for the organization as a whole. These kinds of problems and the need to find a better way to solve them provided the
Application：Logistical planning of shipments Organization:Federal Express Federal Express is the world’s largest express transportation company,providing fast and reliable services for important documents ,packages,and freight.It’s success was gave the credit to the use of Operations Research. Operations Research modeling was a way of life for Federal Express,there were three famous Model planning system,one is origin-destination flow model which worked out a 26-city system that make FedEx’s first success.This model and the planning had served as the foundation for the $8 billion plus corporation that is the Federal Express today.
Since the advent of the industrial revolution, the world has seen a remarkable growth in the size and complexity of organizations. The artisans’ small shops of an earlier era have evolved into the billion-dollar corporations of today. An integral part of this revolutionary change has been a tremendous increase in the division of labor and segmentation of management responsibilities in these organizations. The results have been spectacular. However, along with its blessings, this increasing specialization has created new problems, problems that are still occurring in many organizations. One problem is a tendency for the many components of an organization to grow into relatively autonomous empires with their own goals and value systems, thereby losing sight of how their activities and objectives mesh with those of the overall organization. What is best for one component frequently is detrimental to another, so the components may end up working at cross purposes. A related problem is that as the complexity and specialization in an organization increase, it becomes more and more difficult to allocate the available resources to the various activities in a way that is most effective for the organization as a whole. These kinds of problems and the need to find a better way to solve them provided the
References: 2. Gass, S. I., and A. A. Assad: An Annotated Timeline of Operations Research: An Informal History, Kluwer Academic Publishers (now Springer), Boston, 2005. 3. Gass, S. I., and C. M. Harris (eds.): Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science, 2d ed., Kluwer Academic Publishers (now Springer), Boston, 2001.