North Western OR Group (NWORG)

Operational Research within the Northern Powerhouse

The NWORG is your regional society – our aim is to provide a focus for operational researchers and to reach out to anyone interested in finding out about operational research here in the North West.

The NWORG is run by OR Society members, encompassing both OR practitioners and academics alike, who share a passion for the practice and application of OR.

We take our inspiration from the OR community in the region and put on a selection of events throughout the year to support OR activities: Our meetings provide opportunities to expand your network and engage with organisations utilising OR with impact.

NWORG meetings have covered a range of topical areas including pro bono OR, emergency planning, logistics, OR in government and a special joint meeting with the Simulation Special Interest Group (SIG). We have had site visits to Amazon's Manchester Facility and to Hartree at Daresbury Science Park.

Invited speakers to our meetings include OR experts from IBM, HMRC, The OR Society, Lancaster University, Manchester University, Liverpool University, Manchester Metropolitan University, Amazon Plc, Hartree, Sellafield Ltd and United Utilities. 

Our events are held across the North West to create more opportunities for people to get involved, with meetings held in Manchester, Liverpool and Warrington.

The NWORG is looking to expand the type of meetings held in the future, in addition to our topical meetings we are looking to include networking events, socials and company visits.

If you would like to be part of a vibrant organising team get in touch or speak to one of our NWORG Committee when you attend our meetings.

Committee Details

Future Events:

Dates to follow soon.

Past Events:

NWORG Meeting: Transport for the North

Thursday 30th May: 14:30-16:30pm

HMRC Salford, Three New Bailey, New Bailey Street, Salford, M3 5AX

For NWORG's latest meeting they welcomed Dr Ben Taylor, Principal Developer: Transport for the North who spoke about transport infrastructure in the northern region. 

TFN’s Transport Appraisal Modelling & Evaluation team (TAME) work on gathering and building evidence to support the strategic transport objectives of the North of England. This development has resulted in a collection of tools, guidance, and ways of working known as the Analytical Framework. 

The Common Analytical Framework (CAF) is an evolution of the Analytical Framework for the purpose of sharing and collaborating with England’s other Strategic Transport Bodies (STBs) to:

• Roll-out TfN’s experience and innovation to strengthen the analytical offer across the whole of the country.
• Find areas of common interest and collaborate around them.
• Continue to innovate and, together, add value to the Analytical Framework.

The CAF has been designed not only to enable collaboration across STBs in the UK, but to support Local Transport Authorities (LTAs) too; this is achieved through sharing of data and models. Where possible, CAF models are released under an open-source license for all to use.

By enabling collaboration, the CAF allows commonly required transport tools and models to be developed and utilised by almost anyone. This reduces overall costs, and resource required to deploy new models, saving taxpayer money. Furthermore, innovations in transport analysis and appraisal can easily be shared across UK authorities.