Success or failure in a business setting often depends on understanding how all kinds of factors develop and interact, not just at any given moment but over months, years or even decades.
One of the leading hospitals in the USA, the UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Centre in Los Angeles, has used operational research to effectively manage costs at its operating room suites, saving millions of dollars a year.
Italian company Herambiente S.p.A. applied OR to its core business and created ‘OptiWasteFlow’, a Decision Support System (DSS) to improve accuracy of the planning process and obtain more cost-efficient solutions.
The National Police Air Service used operational research modelling techniques to optimise the location of bases, response times and use of its aircraft to achieve a 14% budgetary saving.
Each night, Menzies Distribution processes approximately 1,500 tonnes of newspapers and magazines through 36 depots, and then out to over 21,000 retail premises throughout the UK.
HealthShare NSW, which operates a Patient Transport Service, asked operational researchers to explore resourcing options for reducing the use of alternative service providers to significantly reduce costs.
A small team of operational researchers in the South West of the UK is helping the NHS make evidence-based decisions to ensure that small and large-scale changes have the intended outcomes.